Subject Had One Big Reputation-Damaging Public Scandal But Made A Comeback

Nerves of Steel

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The Book of the Week is “Nerves of Steel, How I Followed My Dreams, Earned My Wings, and Faced My Greatest Challenge” by Tammie Jo Shults, published in 2019.

The author, born at the dawn of the 1960’s, grew up in New Mexico and Colorado. For two years, military men in the recruitment offices of the Air Force and Navy told her she wasn’t allowed to become a pilot in their services because she was female. That was a lie. In March 1985, she was (finally!) inducted into the Navy, due to her chance meetings with honest men. She graduated near the top of her training class. Of course.

Shults was passionate about and good at, piloting aircraft, but she had to endure numerous indignities and conditions perpetrated by her bosses that were even more life-threatening than they should have been, because she was female. She was cool under fire, and her Christian faith saw her through those stressful and traumatic times of her life. Strangely, a religious quote in her book indicated she believed her God is a male!

Anyway, after her Navy service, she transferred her super flying skills to a job fighting wildfires in California. In the mid-1990’s, she learned to fly a piston-engine plane (different from the military aircraft she had been flying). She engaged in surveillance missions to alert firefighters and others on the ground to situations that were more dangerous than usual; dispensed red mud to put out the fires; and spread fertilizer so as to facilitate the growth of new vegetation.

The third leg of the author’s piloting career involved getting a job at a commercial airline. The GI Bill paid for her training in a 737 jet. Compensation and benefits for women in the military and pilots’ union are equivalent to the mens’, but in some quarters, women are still treated as second-class citizens by men who don’t like “girls” to invade their fraternity.

Infuriatingly for American women, Congress is still one such place where there are a bunch of powerful men, so even if a female were to be elected president, those men would automatically smear her, and vote against everything she did.

As is well known, presidents have had to make serious compromises in civil-rights legislation in order to further their own mandates. Attitudes are very, very difficult to change, as almost every facet of American life began with a bunch of white alpha males:

the Founding Fathers;
Wall Street;
the military and law enforcement;
professional sports;
science and technology;
business and industry;
most of the licensed professions, etc.,

except for areas involving family, household chores and jobs in the arts and entertainment.

So it should not have been surprising that the author encountered yet more gender discrimination with her new employer– in the late 1990’s. Read the book to learn much, much more about Shults’ ordeals and triumphs that show that America is making slow, slow progress in workplace gender equality. Unfortunately, not fast enough for politics. Not yet.

As is well known, in the 1960’s, there were impatient civil-rights activists who believed that resorting to violence would facilitate the enactment of equality-legislation. After the American Civil War to date, white males have threatened and resorted to violence in order to hinder the enactment of equality-legislation.

Not to worry. There is still plenty of time for progressive historical events this election season. Currently, it’s like the start of the fourth quarter of football games, but fans, like voters, need only check the last five minutes of the games to see the winners. Turning off the idiot box for the next month will prevent a lot of emotional trouble. There’s no need to despair, as there might just be a quarterback such as Tom Brady who will step in late in the game. Thank goodness for the last minute. If it weren’t for the last minute, nothing would ever get done.

The Rascal King

“He had a stake in leaving basic problems unsolved, the better to manipulate the frustration that meant votes to him.”

-written of James Curley– the Massachusetts politician who labeled the state’s Democratic convention as “crooked” when he wasn’t nominated for governor in June 1934.

The Book of the Week is “The Rascal King, The Life and Times of James Michael Curley (1874-1958), An Epic of Urban Politics and Irish America” by Jack Beatty, published in 1992.

In November 1874, Curley was born into a poverty-stricken family in Boston. He made politics his career. By 1884, organized crime among politicians had become excessive. A good-government group called the Mugwumps sought to return ethical behavior to politics. In Massachusetts they voted for Grover Cleveland rather than James G. Blaine. The former was the presidential candidate with the less dishonest reputation.

Additionally, Massachusetts copied the British in introducing a civil service system by which government workers were hired based on test scores, rather than patronage from politicians. However, the tests were (deliberately given) in the English language– not understood well by immigrants.

In 1902, Curley co-founded a men’s political club with his fellow Irish Catholics that competed with the previous local Party boss’s. They knew all the tricks for winning elections.

One trick consisted of camping out all night at the polling place so that the next day, election day, he and his cronies could get their candidates listed first on the ballot, where immigrant voters would be more likely to check their names. So, third-party candidates would do well to remind all voters repeatedly not to be trigger-happy– to scroll down on the ballot to see the names of candidates for whom they really want to vote.

A reelection trick his administration pulled was to mail cards bearing the alleged signatures of competing candidates of Curley, to voters in a district where numerous voters were to vote against him. Those cards listed the wrong polling location.

In 1914, Curley was elected mayor of Boston. He soon began living high on the hog, despite his low government pay. For instance, his mansion was renovated by sweetheart contractors. He traveled internationally on cruises for long stretches to the West Indies and Europe. In connection therewith, taxpayers paid for his and his family’s luxury transportation.

Curley claimed he was a victim of discrimination against Irish Catholics when his political rivals accused him of corruption. But, unsurprisingly, he was a hypocrite, as he encouraged scapegoating when it was politically expedient for himself.

In the 1930’s, Massachusetts’ Finance Commission investigated Curley for financial crimes. He had become such a powerful Party boss by then, he was able to fire troublesome members of the commission, and replace them with his allies. He did the same with the State Tax Appeal Board.

Curley’s two major accomplishments in his state consisted of creating (patronage) jobs, and beginning construction projects. However, starting with the Great Depression, Massachusetts began losing manufacturing jobs in textiles and shoes.

In June 1947, in one last desperate attempt to beg for the mercy of the court at a sentencing hearing for the criminal case against him, Curley’s lawyers recited a laundry list of medical problems from which Curley suffered. He was a very sick old man at age 72. But he ran for office again and again, anyway.

The author remarked that into the twentieth century, local politicians were able to get votes by handing out patronage jobs and financial assistance. But when the federal government began to administer programs to help the disadvantaged and senior citizens– such as Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security– local officeholders lost that power. The Reagan Era’s cuts to federal entitlements saw the local political bosses regain some of their power. That is one reason low-level politicians are fighting so hard against national healthcare!

Read the book to learn much, much more about Curley’s antics and adventures in various capacities during his long, long political career.

ENDNOTE: From the 1920’s into the 1930’s, some Americans suffered through administrations of at least two elected officeholders who became despots of an entire state: Huey Long of Louisiana, and James Curley of Massachusetts. As of 2020, a formerly elected candidate (Donald Trump) is attempting to become an all-powerful leader over the entire country (and the world).

But– unlike past leaders, Trump has yet to be fully punished for his numerous misdeeds, wasn’t shamed into resigning, and will never be shamed into behaving better. Fortunately, the nation’s economy is doing well enough so that he can’t blame a Great Depression on his successor.

The nation may have economically benefited from all this political fighting, as so many Americans in politics, the law courts, the media and the entertainment industry owe their jobs to it! Secondly, Trump began his political career late in life, during which aging is taking its toll on the functioning of his brain. Enough said.

Cobb

The Book of the Week is “Cobb, The Life and Times of the Meanest Man Who Ever Played Baseball, A Biography” by Al Stump, published in 1994. Born in December 1886, Cobb grew up in Royston, Georgia.

In 1904, with big-league dreams, Cobb began “paying his dues” in semi-professional baseball. It was employment-at-will. The team paid his travel expenses to away-games at stadiums around southern states via horse-and-buggy in all sorts of weather. The food consisted of bean soup, hog jowls and grits.

Throughout his baseball career, Cobb behaved badly in various ways to get attention and his name known and remembered. He took full advantage of every opportunity to make his own stats look good, although he himself was a social outcast on his own team. He was a man of supernatural ability in both hitting and fielding, and he groomed his legend to the maximum.

Early on, Cobb got himself thrown out of the game for shoving, and spitting on the umpire. He began many a bench-clearing brawl. He repeatedly, anonymously wrote letters of shameless self-promotion to then-famous sports writer Grantland Rice at the Atlanta Journal to get his name in the paper, because his team was too low-level to be covered by the media.

Cobb pioneered various kinds of slides while base-stealing, in ways that would intentionally plant his sharpened metal cleats into basemen’s legs, to injure them, and make them drop the ball. No rule against that dirty trick was imposed during his career. He acted the drama queen– moving the second-base bag closer to third base by kicking it a few inches in mock frustration. Cobb would loudly comment on the game in order to psychologically rattle opposing players.

Americans were shocked when they learned a couple of years after the scheme was executed, that some Chicago White Sox players sought to financially benefit from deliberately losing the 1919 World Series because organized crime figures organized gambling on the games.

In 1921, Cobb simultaneously played for and managed the major league Detroit Tigers. He was a hypocrite, banning his team (except himself) from playing golf, and during spring-training, ordering practice on Sundays. He himself didn’t show up for the latter, as he was visiting the minor league teams he co-owned in Rhode Island and Georgia.

“One corrupt game in every 300? Club owners blanched at that news. They had covered up the rewards systems, allowing it to pervade a game believed by millions of Americans to be on the square. Now, the outcome was shameful disclosure.”

Just as dishonesty waxes and wanes over decades in various areas of American life, it’s time to clean it up again in politics. BUT– only after one big burst of phony outrage spikes media ratings in the next few months, as American society values overpaid noisemakers (talking heads) on the idiot box and sports figures, more than: passionate teachers, sincere public servants, whistleblowers, and muckrakers pushing for social justice.

It is no accident that it’s more expensive than ever to be an idiot these days. Prior to cable TV (beginning in the 1950’s), the price of a TV set included the vast wasteland of entertainment and ads via pure broadcasting. For most Americans, watching TV now entails the purchase of an overpriced monitor and on top of that, payment of a monthly installment forever (!) to receive that vast wasteland (which still includes ads!), for more choices. That installment helps pay the obscene salaries of the said overpaid noisemakers and sports figures. The idiot box and radio pay people to talk. And certain politicians pay people not to talk.

Anyway, read the book to learn much more about Cobb’s family life and career– the man, the myth, the legend.

Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms

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The Book of the Week is “Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms, My Life in American Politics” by Ed Rollins with Tom DeFrank, published in 1996.

Rollins’ parting comment as the book went to press was this:

“Genuine campaign finance reform will only occur through a constitutional amendment eliminating PACs and prohibiting wealthy individuals to spend their own fortunes.”

Born in Boston in 1943, Rollins spent most of his childhood in Vallejo, California. As a young adult, he channeled his anger into amateur boxing. One of his coaches steered him away from going pro.

Rollins thus turned to working in politics. As a child, he had been unduly influenced by the military presence in Vallejo. His pro-war stance caused him to switch from the Democrat to the Republican party. At the last college he attended, Chico State (in California), when the Vietnam War was raging, he actively lobbied to establish a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps branch on campus. Later on in his life, he enjoyed lots of food, drinks and entertainment, compliments of other lobbyists.

In 1981, with Lyn Nofziger as his mentor, Rollins’ job was to get Ronald Reagan’s proposed laws passed and begin the work required to get him reelected president. In February 1981, the author was told to help hush up a sex scandal in connection with one female lobbyist and approximately twenty(!) anxious Republican House representatives. There was videotape evidence.

Rollins and his colleagues helped plant a featured article about Reagan in, and his photo on, the cover of Parade magazine in December 1983. Such propaganda was meant to dispel concerns about Reagan’s age. He was seen exercising and appeared healthy.

Rollins described the dirty-tricks he encountered during his attempt to get Christie Whitman elected against incumbent James Florio, as governor of New Jersey in 1993. In October, Florio’s people had an 18-wheel truck follow Whitman’s bus tour of the state. Pursuant to the Whitman team’s plan, at a toll plaza, a car got in front of the truck and broke down– allowing the bus to lose the spying truck. Rollins claimed that Florio’s side retaliated by pulling the fire alarm at the hotel where Rollins’ team was staying, for two weeks, every night at 4:30am.

On election night about 10pm, when the candidates were neck and neck at the polls– the win/loss margin was fewer than ten thousand votes– Rollins consulted with Whitman’s election law specialist who knew ballot security. They sent in their lawyers and marshals to the precincts in major cities to prevent any foul play.

Read the book to learn much, much more about Rollins’ activities in American politics of the past (pre-Internet), and a fund-raising practice which was arguably a form of voter-suppression, that resulted in a scandal (Hint: It was sparked by Rollins when he accidentally allowed his mouth to speak his subconscious thoughts; perhaps his conscience was bothering him).

All American

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The Book of the Week is “All American, The Rise and Fall of Jim Thorpe” by Bill Crawford, published in 2005.

America’s tradition of holding a Thanksgiving Day college-football game began in the early 1890’s. The schools with football teams practiced profiteering from the get-go. They charged fans admission to the games, and gambling was rampant; even in preseason games. Even among the coaches– who themselves, sometimes played in the games. The coaches also made obscene salaries, even then.

Football had no passing, only rushing, until 1895. And hardly any rules: with respect to creative plays, and preventing injuries. There was unnecessary roughness galore, not to mention minimal, if any, protective equipment, and fan interference was sometimes allowed. Officials arbitrarily enforced the few rules there might have been. Play continued in all kinds of weather.

Born in May 1887 in Oklahoma, Jim Thorpe received most of his education on sports fields, although he was supposed to have been in school. His mother was of Native American, Irish and French origin. At sixteen years old, Thorpe began attending Carlisle Indian Industrial School. It was a military-style trade school for Native Americans where they could live on-campus.

In 1903, the Carlisle team tricked the Harvard Crimson with a play in which a Carlisle player hid the ball under the back of his jersey while his teammates hid their helmets under their jerseys so the opposing team couldn’t find the ball until its actual holder had run into the end zone for a touchdown.

Another dirty trick involved sewing an image of half a football onto various players’ jerseys, making it unclear as to which receiver caught the ball, to trick the opposing team’s defense. But, there was still no penalty for pass-interference, so receivers could be tackled before touching the ball. All of them. Even if they didn’t have the ball.

It should be noted that other, better-funded teams had tens of players who could enter the game anytime, whereas Carlisle had a tiny team whose players were both offense and defense.

In 1906, the newly formed NCAA established specific rules that dramatically reduced injuries, but failed to address the financial shenanigans that have greatly enriched colleges and individuals for the past century.

In 1907, when he was twenty, Thorpe joined the Carlisle football team, which had been coached by Glenn Warner since 1899. Warner headed the school’s Athletic Association, but he was not an employee of the school. So he got paid by a profit-making organization, which got its revenues through gate receipts of sports-competitions hosted by the school– football, baseball, track, etc.

Since Carlisle was a school for Native Americans, it received full federal funding for tuition, room and board for all its students. The Association didn’t have to award tuition-scholarships. Coach Warner used the Association as his personal piggy bank.

Yet another part of Warner’s job that has characterized football coaches since time immemorial, was to hush up the bad behavior of his players so as to squelch bad publicity the school would receive when players got drunk and destroyed property or got into fights, broke school rules or NCAA rules, etc.

Read the book to learn of what an exceptionally excellent multi-sport athlete Thorpe was (though he played mostly football; hint: “Twice Thorpe managed to run downfield and catch his own punts” and on one of those receptions, he shook off three or four tacklers to run twenty yards to score a touchdown.); the scandal surrounding him; and much more about his life and the tenor of the times in “amateur” sports.

Burn Rate

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The Book of the Week is “Burn Rate, Launching A Startup and Losing My Mind” by Andy Dunn, published in 2022. Born in February 1979 in the United States, the author won the lottery in that he had family and friends who knew him well enough to recognize that, given his personality, his behavior was anomalous. He was doubly lucky that not only did he get mental-health treatment before he ended up in jail (well, at least on one occasion) or in the cemetery, but also, he could (with assistance from others) afford it.

“… for many, even a ‘chill’ drug like marijuana can stimulate a manic episode.” The author got to college still unaware that bipolar disorder (aka manic-depressive illness) ran in his family; his grandmother had had it. People who actually have the condition suffer under a Damocles sword their whole lives, as their mental state goes through unpredictable cycles, even with medication. Of course, stress exacerbates the highs and lows. The medication has side effects that are meant to dull the emotions, so bipolar patients don’t experience and enjoy life as much as people whose brain chemicals are more stable than theirs.

According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked Notes, Sources, References, or Bibliography and an index), while in college, the author was ingesting alcohol and controlled substances such as ecstasy, magic mushrooms and marijuana on a daily basis, and taking the (radical) acne medication Accutane. Somehow, he graduated anyway, and got his MBA at Stanford. He explained that the professors there educated students in entrepreneurship, if they wanted to go that route. The author did.

After years of interesting ups and downs, in 2016, the author– a lifelong fan of the Chicago Cubs (who had last been World Series winners in 1908)– was afforded the opportunity to see game 7 of the World Series in Cleveland. But first, he had to rush to JFK airport from the streets in the East 50’s in Manhattan, beginning an hour before his plane took off, to get there. His cab driver did 90 MPH. Sympathetic people at the airport made way for him when they heard about his situation.

Read the book to learn of the author’s other trials and tribulations, triumphs and defeats. Speaking of defeats…

This is the song Hillary Clinton is singing now.

IN POST-CLINTON TIME

sung to the tune of “Sunny Afternoon” (Official Audio) with apologies to the Kinks.

My opponents BEAT me the last two times.
Deplorables and BERnie were unkind.
I SOREly miss the Situation Room.
And though I CAN-not be in charge,
I’m not locked up, I’m still at-large.
All I WANT’S in-the Situation Room.

Save me, save me, save me
from bad publicity.
I’ve got lots of enemies.
It’s a VAST right-wing conspiracy.

And I love to hobnob with elites,
brag about my political feats.
I SOREly miss the Situation Room,
in post-Clinton time,
in post-Clinton time,
in post-Clinton time.

Donald Trump’s ruined my rep.
He’s in his safehouse doing ’24 prep,
spewing the usUAL blather and cruelty.
Now I’m here online,
doing the grass-roots, make-work grind.
I SOREly miss the Situation Room.

Help me, help me, help me
revive my ca-reer.
Well, give my Party money
to get me out of here.

‘Cause I love to hobnob with elites,
brag about my political feats.
I sorely miss the Situation Room,
in post-Clinton time,
in post-Clinton time,
in post-Clinton time.

Ah, save me, save me, save me
from bad publicity.
I’ve got lots of enemies.
It’s a VAST right-wing conspiracy.

And I love to hobnob with elites,
brag about my political feats.
I SOREly miss the Situation Room,
in post-Clinton time,
in post-Clinton time,
in post-Clinton time,
in post-Clinton time,
in post-Clinton time.

BONUS POST

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“Inflation, profiteering, and corruption are rife, and the food situation and (closely connected therewith) the transportation situation are most serious, as is also the housing problem… The present regime does not at present command a sufficient majority, or perhaps sufficient constructive talent to initiate the drastic measures which alone could save the situation.”

The above happens to have been written in January 1946, by the British embassy in Rio de Janeiro, about Brazil.

The Bonus Book of the Week is “Brazil, The Fortunes of War, World War II and the Making of Modern Brazil” by Neill Lochery. This wordy and redundant volume described how a South American leader, Getulio Vargas– through cleverly navigating: relationships with war alliances and foes, and tricky political issues– was able to modernize his country by the Postwar Era, compliments of American taxpayers.

In late 1937, Brazil got a new Constitution. Vargas, duly elected leader since 1930, had gotten friendly with the United States in exchange for agreeing to fight Italy and Germany when war came. However, by May 1938, there occurred a failed coup against him; perhaps partly because he had banned all political parties except his own. His enemies included the Communists and the Fascist Green Shirts (Integralistas), and he wasn’t exactly buddy-buddy with two of Brazil’s top military leaders.

One conflict Vargas faced in September 1939, was that he couldn’t afford to make trouble because: Brazil’s military was weak, Brazil traded with both Germany and the United States, and it had immigrant communities from Germany, Italy and Japan. Vargas’ speech at the May Day parade in 1940 didn’t go over too well with the United States, as his language was that of a Fascist; he sounded like he was siding with Hitler and Mussolini. This was deliberately calculated to tease FDR, in order to secure financing for a steel mill in Brazil.

By the time of the infamous December 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, Brazil had still yet to receive the bulk of the weapons it was due from Germany and the United States. Brazil had a fuel shortage, and the U.S. supplied Brazil with most of its fuel. Other wartime hardships and plot twists abounded; 1942 was a year crowded with incidents, too numerous to mention here.

Suffice to say, in autumn 1945, when dissatisfaction with Vargas reached critical mass among military leaders and many ordinary Brazilians, there was distrust that he would actually hold free and fair elections. They were scheduled to be held in December 1945.

Read the book to learn what happened in August 1954, and about the cast of characters and propaganda that shaped the history of Brazil just before, during and after WWII (hint: public relations schemes included wartime visits to Brazil by Walt Disney and Orson Welles, thanks to Nelson Rockefeller.).

Steinbrenner

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The Book of the Week is “Steinbrenner, The Last Lion of Baseball” by Bill Madden, published in 2010.

George Steinbrenner was born in July 1930 in Ohio. At fourteen years old, he was sent by his father to military school. He was groomed to inherit his father’s Great Lakes shipping company.

In late 1972, he got investors together to buy the New York Yankees baseball team from the media network CBS. His financial interest was the largest, however, so he was the face of the team. After the 1974 baseball season, he was indicted for committing felonies by making illegal, individual and corporate political contributions to the former late president Nixon’s reelection campaign. He never spent a day in jail, but was fined. The then-commissioner of Major League Baseball (MLB) Bowie Kuhn was out to get him for other reasons, though.

Nevertheless, in 1977, after just five years of ownership, Steinbrenner’s Yankees won the World Series, “… in spite of clubhouse dissension, a crazy manager [Billy Martin] and an even crazier owner.” This was due to overwhelming hitting talent. That is the most crucial skill required for a winning baseball team. The reason is– there is limited opportunity to score, unlike with all other major professional American sports (football, basketball, hockey and soccer). In baseball, a team must get its players on the bases and run around those bases in order to win the game. In all the other games, when there is a turnover, any player from the team on defense, can score on the spot.

Aspects of Steinbrenner’s character rubbed people the wrong way. His frequent dishonesty, temper tantrums, impulsive decision-making, micro-management, and excessive spending to recruit players for the Yankees caused emotional burnout and sky-high turnover among his employees. Even so, starting in 1976, there was a major change in the legal rights of Major League players– called free agency– that prompted the average player’s 1975 salary of $44,676 to rise by 1980 to $143,756. Steinbrenner was willing to pay top dollar for the players perceived to be the absolute best prospects for his Yankees, and also for his top executive team.

In 2004, the Yankees’ payroll was $185 million. Beginning in 2005, Joe Torre became the then-highest paid MLB manager, with a $19.2 million, 3-year contract. The following year, Brian Cashman became the then-highest paid general manager with a $4.4 million, 3-year contract.

Read the book to learn much more about Steinbrenner’s career as a professional baseball-team owner, and the constantly changing cast of characters who helped him navigate the Yankees’ ups and downs.

You Can’t Trust Them – BONUS POST

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YOU CAN’T TRUST THEM

This is the song Steve Bannon is singing now.

sung to the tune of “You Can’t Touch This” with apologies to (M.C.) Hammer.

You can’t trust them.
You can’t trust them.
You can’t trust them.
You can’t trust them.
No. No. No. No.
You can’t trust them.
Again, you made America GREAT,
makes me say, just you WAIT.
Thank you, for voting TRUMP
with a Wall to build
and a fist to BUMP.
We feel good, even NOW
we won again in this cheating TOWN.
We’re innoCENT.
So they can’t charge me with conTEMPT.
We beat the radical left.
You can’t trust them.
Yeah, that’s how we roll,
and you know, uh,
you can’t trust them.
Don’t look in my files, man.
You can’t trust them.
I ignore the subpoenas.
You can’t trust them.
We deflect their licks,
we keep it REAL.
We’re strong like that.
We say stop the STEAL.
So get out on the STREET
and get a big sign
and use your free SPEECH
while we’re polling.
On TOP.
Update a little bit.
Keep on fighting. Don’t STOP.
Like me, like me.
They’re hot on my trail,
so back me up.
They accuse us of trying a PUTSCH,
but we’re the winners, uh, they can’t TOUCH.
Yo, don’t even.
You can’t trust them.
Why they harassing me, man?
You can’t trust them.
Yo, let freedom ring,
election’s still on, sucker.
You can’t trust them.
Give me a rally and a MIC,
they’re so dull.
See we’re all PSYCHED.
Now they JUMP,
you mess with the Bannon
you’re messing with TRUMP.
That’s risky, and NAIVE.
Accusers are hatin’,
we’re not gonna LEAVE,
won’t CAVE IN.
We know, how to catch the next WAVE IN.
We’re LEGIT.
We’ll take over, so they might as well QUIT.
Sure thing.
They’re so not.
You can’t trust them.
You can’t trust them.
We’re on a roll.
Stop. Bannon time!
I’m not guilty, this I KNOW.
If you can’t groove to my podcasts,
you’re too SLOW.
So wave, your arms in the AIR.
Take back the country.
The ballot-counting was so UNFAIR.
We can’t stand this any LONGER.
Stick with me and you’ll get STRONGER.
Now listen, Biden’s going down,
let’s open our eyes and look AROUND (around, around, around).
No. You can’t trust them.
Get with it.
You can’t trust them.
You’ve got lots of problems, ’cause
you know, uh, you can’t trust them.
Let freedom ring, election’s still on.
We keep it real.
Stop. Bannon time!
You can’t trust them.
You can’t trust them.
You can’t trust them.
We’re on a roll.
Stop. Bannon time!
No bones about it,
that Bannon’s just so DEFT.
I’m always on your phone
and I shame the radical LEFT.
Now they won’t ever, stop with their PLOTS.
To end this outrage, we can do LOTS.
I visited the world,
from China to D.C.
It’s Bannon GO
Bannon, Steve Bannon YO
Keep calm and follow ME.
You can’t trust them.
You can’t trust them.
You can’t trust them.
No. You can’t trust them.
I’m bad. You can’t trust them.
So deft. You can’t trust them.
Yo, we’re on it. You can’t trust them.

Revolution 2.0 – BONUS POST

The Bonus Book of the Week is “Revolution 2.0, The Power of the People Is Greater Than the People in Power, a Memoir” by Wael Ghonim, published in 2012.

Born in 1980, the author attended high school in Egypt. The country had a rote education system, and cheating was rampant. The underpaid teachers derived the bulk of their income from private tutoring.

The 1980’s had seen the government of Egypt start to change for the worse. There was increasing poverty, brain drain, and oppression of religious groups. In 1987, Hosni Mubarak first came to power. He initially promised to serve only the two-term limit as president. But as he acquired more power, he acquired more ownership. And more power. And broke his promise. Every presidential “election” every six years thereafter, was rigged to allow Mubarak’s reelection three more times. There was only one political party. His.

While attending university in 1998, the author launched an Islamic website that featured audio tracks of the Qur’an. He was a technology geek, and became especially well-versed in Web communications. In 2004, a group of dissidents formed a group called Kefaya, meaning “enough” in Arabic. In 2006, ordinary Egyptians began protesting against the corruption of the regime.

In 2008, after eight months of numerous interviews, the author got a job with Google. In January 2010, in order to escape Mubarak’s oppressive regime, he and his wife and children moved to Dubai. It was around then that the author became politically vocal about Egypt’s rotten government. He wrote, “Out of hopelessness came anger.”

The author and a friend launched a Facebook page to promote an opposition candidate to Mubarak, as another “election” was coming up in 2011. The regime’s public relations machine was a master at smearing its political enemies; so it did, early and often.

In June 2010, the author created a Facebook page to tell the world about how the Egyptian government tortured and killed a dissident, and he posted a gruesome photo of the said dissident. Users commented on it in droves. In the coming months, the author and others used social media to plan peaceful protests to bring down the Mubarak government.

The author helped spark a movement that experienced growing-pains typical for such a movement. For a while, it became a victim of its own success: when a movement grows significantly in a short time– due to the increasing number of people in it– members begin to form factions and disagree, and go off and do their own thing. So some disgruntled members sabotage the original group’s goals.

Also, the political enemies of the movement see it growing, so they send infiltrators to divide and conquer it. That is why progress has been so slow for so many seemingly large political movements, such as civil rights and feminism.

In autumn 2010, the author was starting to get emotionally burnt out. He mistakenly used his personal account that revealed his true identity. Up to then, he had been super-careful to use false identities in his social media accounts, so as to avoid being arrested, jailed, interrogated, tortured and possibly murdered.

Egyptians were encouraged by Tunisia’s street protests, which were going on around the same time. But Egypt’s problems were worse. The author took the plunge to call Egypt’s movement “Revolution Against Torture, Poverty, Corruption and Unemployment.” He helped shape the protest messaging that convinced the public to peacefully take to the streets on Egyptian Police Day, January 25, 2011. He explained that he opposed only human rights abuses committed by law enforcement officials, not the respectful maintenance of order.

The author learned that: his contacts and access to communications were more important than plans, because best-laid plans always go awry– conditions on the ground change rapidly, and “People’s attachment to ideas is much stronger than their attachment to individuals, who can be doubted and defamed.”

Read the book to learn the details of the backstory, and what happened next.