Speech to Carroll County New Hampshire Republicans Monday, 3-15-21

Only seven at this point

Way back in the 20th century I was born into a family of Boston-Irish-Catholic-Democrats, the fourth of eight children. We were taught that Protestants and Republicans were different from us and not to be trusted. My parents were politically active at the town level and some of my earliest memories are of our mother driving us kids around town to deliver fliers door-to-door encouraging people to vote for either my father running for local office, or a family friend. Politics of all kinds were discussed most nights around our supper table beginning at 5:45 pm. If I showed up late because I was fishing, playing baseball, or finishing my paper route, there would be consequences.

My mother and father

After supper I would sit in front of the television while my father watched the news. John F. Kennedy was our hero and my father proudly displayed a photo of him and Congressman JFK standing next to each other at a meeting to organize a public-employee union called NAGE — the National Association of Government Employees. That union later morphed into today’s SEIU, which functions as an army of Democrat poll workers and thugs. On weekends my father watched 30-minute episodes of “World at War” or “Victory at Sea” When a flotilla was crossing the English Channel on D-Day he would say, “I was there.” When the Battle of Okinawa was depicted with kamikazes crashing in to US ships he would say, “I was there.” 

Okinawa

But then most other fathers on our street were WWII veterans. That’s how it was in suburban Massachusetts in the 1950s and 60s. Every kid was proud of his father and that shaped our world view. In the late sixties and early seventies, however, things changed. Baby boomers grew up, went to college. Many challenged the values of the Greatest Generation. They used drugs. They ignored sexual norms, and opposed the Vietnam War. Heroes like JFK, RFK, Martin Luther King were assassinated. Cities burned in riots. Protests divided the country. President Johnson chose not to run again. Nixon resigned. My older brother started using drugs and left home. Those previously edifying conversations around our supper table became acrimonious.

Similar things were happening up and down my street and across the country. American culture was fraying. Respect for the Greatest Generation was replaced by: “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” 

That unraveling of American pride then paused during eight years of the Reagan Administration, but began anew under the Obama Administration. Last summer cities were again burning in the riots following the George Floyd’s death. America has started shaking again. Today, after only two months of the Biden Administration, political polarization in America is worse than at anytime since the Civil War.

And racism is back in the form of Critical Race Theory. Although banned by President Trump, it has become dominant in public school classrooms just since the November election. If you look at sample curricula virtually anywhere in our country now you’ll see students being taught to categorize themselves by the color of their skin, not the content of their character. White people are born “privileged.” They’re inherently racist against all other people. White people perpetuate “institutional racism” the theory claims, consciously or unconsciously. 

Such BS

Curricula like “The 1619 Project” which purports the United States was built on slavery — and not on notions of liberty and freedom spelled out in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The 1619 Project is being adopted in public schools across several states and a new acronym has emerged: “BIPOC.” If you haven’t seen it yet, you will. It stands for: Black, Indigenous, People of Color. Our country is divided in two now: whites and BIPOCs. This is not good and it’s gaining momentum. Ask your children and grandchildren if they’re hearing it.

And it’s not just in schools. Coca Cola and many other mainstream corporations today train their employees to first acknowledge, then renounce their alleged “White Privilege” and learn to “Be Less White.” The training is mandatory and they must admit being racists.

My teaching career began in the 1970s after I was influenced by the craziness of the 60s and 70s. The first US History textbook I used was one of the most widely-used at the time. Today, however, it would banned. In the chapters leading up the Civil War, it summarized debates between between members of Congress from northern and southern states on slavery. Here’s what it says on page 274 of American History:

Southerners justified slavery as a good thing because:

1. The African slave was an inferior human being. As an inferior, he was suited only to special kinds of work. This work was best done under a system of slavery.

2. Slavery was approved by the Bible. Many southerners pointed out that slavery had existed in Biblical times. The Bible did not condemn slavery. Therefore, they added, it could not be bad or sinful.

3. The slave was treated better than many white factory workers in the north … who worked 12 snd 14 hours a day often in poorly-lighted and unhealthy factories. The slave did most of his work in outdoor in an area that was much warmer and healthier than a northern city.

4. Slavery was important in helping the South develop its leaders… The use of slaves made it possible for southern leaders to devote themselves to law, politics, and government service.

There were commensurate northern arguments against slavery with which you would already be familiar. My students would study, then role-play as ante-bellum northern and southern senators and members of Congress and debate just as Congress did in those years leading up to the Civil War. If a teacher were to try that today he’d be suspended immediately. On end-of-the-year evaluations, though, my students cited that debate as the lesson they learned the most from.

They learned also that slavery was practiced in every other civilization throughout human history — including in black Africa from which American slaves either purchased or captured. Many of our students today, however, believe slavery was unique to America.

The Allegedly Reverend Al Sharpton

Those southern senators and congressmen my students role-played were all Democrats. After WWII they were called Dixiecrats. Today’s Democrats, however, like to put on historical blinders when viewing their party's racist history. They claim that racist southern Democrats all became Republicans when Richard Nixon implemented his “Southern Strategy.” It’s classic projection. Trouble is, there’s little evidence for it.

Nixon said nothing remotely racist over a very long career from 1940s to the 1970s, but Democrats claim he used “racist dog whistles” like “law and order” and “states rights.” Really? Like a secret code? Only one senator — Strom Thurmond — became Republican and only one congressman — Albert Watson of South Carolina. Nearly all Dixiecrats supported Alabama Governor George Wallace, a Democrat, not Nixon. Though John Tower, Jesse Helms and Trent Lott joined the Republicans too, they hadn’t been Dixiecrats. The South became Republican in the 1980s and 90s because of Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America, not because of Nixon.

Few people know that a greater percentage of Republicans voted for the 1964 Civil Rights bill than Democrats and Nixon was one of them. He also supported the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Tom Wicker of the New York Times wrote: “There’s no doubt about it — the Nixon administration accomplished more in 1970 to desegregate Southern school systems than had been done in the 16 previous years or probably since. There’s no doubt either that it was Richard Nixon personally who conceived and led the administration’s desegregation effort.”

Nixon is the president who actually got Affirmative Action going which discriminated against whites in favor of blacks and women. The south became Republican not because of any strategy of Richard Nixon’s. The south became Republican because the south became conservative. It had little to do with racism.

Republicans all

So here we are in 2021. The Democrats run the country again and they just enacted a $1.9 trillion “Covid Relief” bill which has very little to do with COVID. Rather, it has everything to do with Democrat agendas, like $350 billion for bailing out cities like Chicago and Los Angeles and states like Illinois, California, New York and others. Decades of Democrat mayors and governors have brought them to the brink of bankruptcy. They did this by negotiating overly-generous pension and benefit packages they knew they couldn’t afford for public employee unions like the above mentioned SEIU, AFS/CME, and others.

Democrat leaders knew these contracts were unsustainable. They also knew they’d be out of office when the bill came due. The so-called COVID Relief Bill also gives Democrat teachers’ unions tens of billions more to open the schools they’ve kept closed. Money isn’t the problem. They still have billions they haven’t spent from the last relief bill. Maybe some of you are old enough to remember Illinois Republican Senator Everett Dirksen’s remark from earlier times in that state: “A million here, a million there — pretty soon you’re talking real money.” If only it were still a million here and a million there. Now it’s a trillion here and a trillion there — and that’s still not enough for the Democrats!

Next will come still another multi-trillion-dollar piece of legislation — ostensibly for rebuilding infrastructure. Remember President Obama’s $800 billion in “shovel ready projects”? I challenge any of you to point to one of those shovel-ready projects we spent hundreds of billions on. I can’t point to any.

It was different with Republican public works projects over the years. We can point to the Hoover Dam in the twenties. Hoover was a Republican. We can point to Eisenhower’s interstate highways in the fifties. Eisenhower was a Republican. Where are Obama’s shovel ready projects from the 2000s? I give up.

We Republicans have our work cut out for us, don’t we? And so it goes…

OPEN THE SCHOOLS NOW

There’s a certain look on students’ faces when they’re learning. Behind that expression their brains are making connections, associations, projections. Their imaginations formulate questions: “If that’s true, then what about…?” And “What would happen if…?” and “Could it be that…?” A good teacher knows the lesson is working by the questions it generates. I wish I could have pulled out a camera and photographed them, but that would have ruined the moment.

I always enjoyed seeing that look when I had a classroom and now I’m seeing it on the faces of my grandchildren. Not, however, when they’re doing “remote learning.” Because of continued overreaction to Covid, they seldom go into classrooms anymore and that’s too bad. Lately when the four belonging to my youngest daughter visit, they bring along their laptops to access their teachers through Zoom at certain designated times. Zoom learning is okay in an emergency but it’s a poor substitute for being in a classroom with a good teacher. I look for the telltale expression as they’re gazing at their screens but I’ve yet to see it.

Another daughter asked me to teach U. S. History to her son this year and I’ve been doing that once a week for months. I’ve thus observed him accessing “remote learning” as well and I’m not encouraged. Public school systems are pretending that all is well but it’s not. While I was still in the public schools ten years ago, I saw steadily declining academic standards and wrote about it many times. That was depressing, but the recent school shutdowns have been disastrous for those standards. My only hope at this point is that teachers’s unions, who have for decades lobbied state and federal agencies to resist teacher accountability for student learning, are being exposed for the selfish, controlling bullies they are as they use their enormous clout to keep schools closed.

When first hearing about Covid, we all agreed to shut down schools along with everything else last winter. More recent evidence, however, indicates that school closures weren’t necessary because the chance of children dying from Covid were and are extremely remote. We didn’t know a year ago but we do now. To continue the school shutdowns, as the teachers’ unions are insisting, is madness. The unions claim they’re still at risk for Covid but there’s little evidence for that. Most studies published so far point in the opposite direction. Anthony Fauci has repeatedly recommended that schools reopen." 

My first exposure to teachers’ unions was in 1979/80 when I left an administrative post and returned to the classroom. I signed a form to allow union dues to be deducted from my paycheck and soon found myself serving as chief negotiator for the local NEA affiliate. It troubled me that all classroom teachers got the same pay regardless of ability or performance. Every teacher was paid under a formula that only considered years served and number of degrees. Performance evaluations had nothing to do with salary. There were more than a few incompetent teachers who were veterans with advanced degrees and they were usually active in the union.

Sometimes intelligent, well-meaning people get teaching contracts but are not able to do the job for various reasons. They could be let go for any reason during their first two years, but after they signed a contract for the third year they could only be fired for “just cause.” That wording seemed okay with me during negotiations until I realized that if a lazy or otherwise incompetent teacher was protected by the union, it would cost the district $250,000 in legal fees to fire him, and that was in the 1980s. It would likely cost several times that now.

Each year, a state union official with a fancy vehicle, a big expense account, and pushy personality would take the negotiating team out for a lavish dinner. He would tell us to demand nothing less than a certain starting salary for beginning teachers, how much to demand in annual increments, and how big a benefit package to insist on — all based on what other teachers in Maine and nationally were getting. When I inquired about merit pay, he looked at me like I had ten heads and strongly advised against it.

Later in the eighties my political views were moving rightward, but I noticed that virtually all my union dues and everyone else’s went to left-wing causes. When I tried to change that I got nowhere. In Maine I could resign from the union but it took a Supreme Court decision before teachers in other states could. In some states, they still pay the union to represent them in negotiations even if they don’t belong, because they aren’t allowed to negotiate on their own.

That was a long time ago, but teachers’ unions have become vastly more powerful since. Just look at who really runs our public schools now as President Biden avoids opposing them on reopening.

CURBING GOVERNMENT POWER

Has government exceeded its power with Covid shutdowns? Some have thought so from the beginning, but almost everyone cooperated for the first few weeks to “flatten the curve.” It seemed logical not to overload our hospitals and I heard no one object in my small circle, but that’s changing. 

The curve has been flattened for some time now but media hype continues unabated and, consequently, so does public fear. Mask-wearing is viewed as a public responsibility to some and an exercise in virtue-signaling for others to whom it has become a woke, fashion accessory.

Michigan Governor Whitmer

We’ve learned that not all of us are vulnerable to the virus — that only elderly persons with multiple co-morbidities need worry. We’ve also learned that the first dire predictions of millions dying in the the U.S. were way overblown. We’ve learned that the CDC has been over-counting Covid deaths by 94%. Studies are beginning to emerge indicating that shutdowns may not have curbed spread of the virus at all — but it’s becoming almost treasonous to suggest that.

Months ago, some Americans filed suit against blue-state governors for exceeding their constitutional authority and rulings on those suits are beginning to come down. In Pennsylvania, a federal judge ruled that Democrat Governor Wolf’s lockdown orders are unconstitutional. Plaintiffs include Republican state representatives, county officials, and Congressman Mike Kelly from the Pittsburgh area. The decision was issued in September and Wolf has appealed. A circuit court stay is in place and it will take more time to work this through to a final conclusion.

Meantime, in Michigan, the state supreme court ruled that Democrat Governor Whitmer exceeded her authority with Covid restrictions as well. The Michigan attorney general declared he would no longer enforce her edicts. It’s hard to determine how much her autocratic behavior around the virus contributed to the FBI-foiled plan by anarchists to kidnap her. Perhaps that will come out at trial, assuming the perpetrators don’t plea-bargain.

And what an odd bunch they are. Governor Whitmer immediately blamed President Trump for the kidnapping plot, but then a video came out of one potential plotter wearing earlobe-stretching disc earrings as he expressed his hatred for the president. Given leftist, anti-government riots perpetrated by BLM and Antifa on one hand and right-wing, anti-government actions by the likes of Terry McVeigh and Terry Nichols twenty-five years ago, it’s hard to position these plotters on the political spectrum.

WHO reverses itself on shutdowns

Just days ago, the World Health Organization reversed itself and advised world leaders to stop “using lockdowns as your primary control method” with the Coronavirus, and “Lockdowns just have one consequence that you must never ever belittle, and that is making poor people an awful lot poorer.” It wasn’t long ago that President Trump cancelled US support to the WHO for being in cahoots with the Chinese Communist Party. Now they’re on the same page.

It’s not just political groups rebelling against autocratic edicts by Democrat officials. In New York City, conservative Jews openly defied Democrat Mayor DiBlasios’ and Democrat Governor Cuomo’s ban on religious gatherings by dancing in the streets. Also in NYC, Brooklyn Roman Catholic Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio filed suit against the state of New York for violating his First Amendment guarantee of free exercise of religion. New York’s usually-timid Cardinal Timothy Dolan surprisingly backed DiMarzio’s suit.

After President Trump tested positive for the virus, mainstream media claim it’s because of his refusal to wear a mask. Some outlets imply that he got his just desserts for his reluctance. I do not believe they’re effective against spreading the virus and I resent the signs on entry doors telling me I cannot enter without a mask. Although they cost me $15 apiece, I purchased some face masks online which declare: “THIS MASK IS USELESS, AND SO IS YOURS.” Some shoppers just stare at me, while others tell me: “I love your mask.”

As I’m about to submit this column on Tuesday, I see a report by national security correspondent Jordan Schachtel that:

“[A]CDC study, which surveyed symptomatic COVID-19 patients, has found that 70.6% of respondents reported “always” wearing a mask, while an additional 14.4% say they “often” wear a mask. That means a whopping 85% of infected COVID-19 patients reported habitual mask wearing. Only 3.9% of those infected said they “never” wear a face covering.”

Last August, according to the Huffington Post, Joe Biden said: “Let’s institute a mask mandate, nationwide, starting immediately, and we will save lives.” A few days ago though, Biden said he’s not sure a president can do that, but he would mandate them on federal property. A glance at the map of federal land in the USA, you’ll see that half of California and nearly all of several western states.

Left & Right Wednesday, July 8, 2020

Newspaper publisher Mark Guerringue again sits in the left chair. The first question from the producer asks about reports that Trump was ignorant of Russian payments to the Taliban to kill American soldiers. It’s no surprise to me, I say. Russians have been supporting the Taliban against US forces for nineteen years. When Russian invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the US supported Bin Laden and others against the Russians. I don’t see what the big deal is. Mark’s answer is circuitous. He talks about frequent communications between Trump and Putin, then mentions what he claims are examples of Trump’s racism like retweeting someone saying “White Power” from a gold cart in Florida. I asked what that had to do with Putin paying Taliban and Mark related what Trump aide John Bolton said about it: that Trump probably was briefed on the Russian payments but didn’t pay attention, that Bolton saw that often with Trump and his daily intelligence briefings. I bring up Trump’s July 4th speech at Mount Rushmore and outrageous mainstream media reaction to it, quoting headlines from The NYTimes and The Washington Post depicting the speech as “dark and devisive.” Mark quotes Trump saying there is a new far-left facism in corporate boardrooms.” I agree with that because corporation are kissing BLM butts and coming out in support. Mark claims 70% of the American people support BLM. I doubt that. Mark claimes: “Trump said angry mobs are tearing down statues of our founders, our most sacred memorials and unleash a wave or violence.” I ask, “You don’t agree with that?” “No,” says Mark. “What?” I say. “Have you been watching television?” It went on like that for the rest of the hour, quite contentious. See for yourself.

What The Heck Is "Systemic Racism?"

Good news: After three months, the coronavirus has been knocked off the front page.

Bad news: It’s been replaced by riots in our cities.

On Monday of last week, a horrified world watched Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin kill a handcuffed George Floyd by kneeling on his neck while he pleaded for mercy. My first question is: why wasn’t Chauvin arrested for murder until Friday?

My second question is: how does anyone know racism made Chauvin do that? Because the cop is white and the victim was black? Could Chauvin be an equal opportunity brute? Looking for evidence that he’s racist, all I could find was a Mercury News interview with the owner of a nightclub at which, ironically, both Chauvin and Floyd worked, Floyd as a bouncer. The owner said Chauvin was overly aggressive with black patrons who were fighting compared to Hispanic patrons who were.

If, as reported in multiple venues, there were multiple previous complaints about Chauvin, how did he keep his job? The police commissioner is black. The state attorney general is black. The US Congresswoman for the district is black. Leftist Democrats have controlled the city and state for decades. All have more influence on local police behavior than some nebulous concept like “systemic racism.” 

Rather than look in the mirror, they blame others. Some blamed President Trump. Minnesota Governor Walz blamed drug cartels. Minnesota Department of Public Safety Commissioner, John Harrington blamed white supremacists. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey also blamed white supremacists, organized crime, and foreign elements, then he actually cried at a press conference.

Leftist Mainstream Media blame systemic racism. On leftist Joy Reid’s MSNBC show over the weekend, author Bakari Sellers said: “This is not just about George Floyd. This is about systemic racism and systemic injustice and systemic oppression.” Also appearing was Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MIN) in whose district the riots began. She and Joy Reid nodded solemnly while Sellers blamed systemic racism. On ABC’s “This Week last Sunday, Omar said: ”There really was also many people who chose to demonstrate and not abide by the curfew, who felt like they also were terrorized by the presence of tanks, by the presence of the National Guard, and a militarized police.”

The long-time, left-wing paper called; The Nation, ran the headline: “There’s Only One Possible Conclusion: White America Likes Its Killer Cops.” Writer Elie Mystal claims: “The police are never going to voluntarily stop killing black and brown people… until the majority of white people in this country make the killings stop.”

Leftist public schools are teaching lessons on “systemic racism,” but what, exactly, is that? If you look it up you won’t find a definition that doesn’t employ circular reasoning. Google it, for example, and among the first hits will be Ben & Jerry’s take, entitled: "7 Ways We Know Systemic Racism Is Real." The first way is: “Racism At Every Level of Society” and it goes on listing racial disparities in wealth distribution, education, housing, and health care. All are assumed to be caused by racism of whites against blacks — circular reasoning again.

During the Obama administration, the US Department of Education started offering lessons on "systemic racism" for public schools using the same circular reasoning: ”Implicit racial bias can help us to better understand how institutional [systemic] racism and other forms of bias affect educational experiences of students from marginalized communities.” They, too, list the disparities and blame racism.

Several of our big-city police chiefs blame Antifa for turning peaceful demonstrations into riots. So does Attorney General Barr and President Trump. Meanwhile, Democrat NYC Mayor DiBlasio’s daughter was arrested for throwing rocks at police. Democrat Representative Ilhan Omar’s daughter tweeted support for rioters. Minnesota Attorney General and former congressman Keith Ellison. So did his son. All are Democrats and Keith Ellison is a former DNC Chairman.

Look around at the cities in which people are rioting. All have been run by Democrats for decades. There’s definitely a pattern here but don’t expect Mainstream Media to report on it.

THE NEW POLITICS OF RESISTANCE

The curve has been flattened at enormous expense. Most expect Covid will eventually go through the entire population and take many more elderly with comorbidities. It cannot be stopped without a vaccine — or a series of them since the virus will likely mutate. An initial vaccine won’t be available until the end of this year at the earliest. Many governors, however, are reluctant to relax their shutdowns. Instead, they predict a second wave, keeping fear levels high.

Everyone cooperated to flatten the curve, which didn’t take long. People understood the logic and it got done. Reasons to continue the shutdown are not logical and more than a few medical professionals have been censored by Youtube, Facebook, and other social media outlets for declaring that it’s past time to fully reopen the economy. Many people are openly rebelling against continuing restrictions; many more quietly ignore them.

Ninety-something percent of deaths are in one vulnerable, elderly cohort which must continue to quarantine until a vaccine is available. However, death rates for all people infected from this point — including our vulnerable elders — is below one percent. Hospitals are not overwhelmed. Instead, they’re laying off staff! Yet still, Democrats and their media allies continue pumping up fear. The danger now is that lots of people are afraid to go to emergency rooms. Cancers are not caught early. Heart problems are not detected, and so forth.

Motives for continuing the shutdown seem primarily political, though disguised as concern for humanity. The left wants to keep things locked. Conservatives want to reopen. The left says conservatives would sacrifice human lives for money. Conservatives believe the left would keep the economy depressed so they can defeat Trump and take the Senate in November.

Pre-virus divisions are widening as nearly everything now is seen through a political lens. The left sees Dr. Anthony Fauci as the virus guru and he would keep schools closed next fall. It’s hard to envision economic recovery if parents must continue homeschooling. Going about in public without a mask is becoming a sign of resistance to government control. Wearing one is becoming a sign of virtue, not unlike driving a Prius.

Snitches call police when their neighbors entertain guests. Some cops try enforcing guidelines while others declare they have enough to do already. When mainstream media focused on crowds ignoring social distancing at Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri over the weekend, Camden County Sheriff Tony Helms issued this statement: “Social distancing is not a crime and therefore the sheriff’s office has no authority to enforce actions in that regard.” The left was appalled. Conservatives cheered.

Traveling between rural, mostly-conservative Lovell, Maine and coastal, mostly-leftist South Portland, Maine each week, I see contrasts. Rarely do I notice anyone wearing a mask in Lovell but it’s very common in South Portland. Picking up a curbside order of fried clams there last week, I parked next to a pickup truck in which a small dog was wearing a mask. I don’t know whether it was a sarcastic political statement by the driver or genuine concern for a beloved pet.

There’s little point going across the Casco Bay Bridge into Portland these days. Yes, it’s pretty to watch the sun rise at the Eastern Promenade, but nothing is open. The left runs everything in Portland and is less than welcoming to those with differing world views. Last summer I was harassed and assaulted for wearing a MAGA hat on a Congress Street art festival. Will people without masks be harassed? If the City of Portland allows another art festival this summer, I’ll let you know.

My habit is to keep a mask in my car and another in my truck. If I drive up to a store that requires one to get in, I’ll go back to my vehicle and get it. Wearing it makes my glasses fog up though and I can’t see what I’m looking for, so I pull it down. That, of course, negates any virus-inhibiting effect it’s supposed to have, but no one has so far ordered me to pull it up. Many around me do the same thing. Otherwise, I never wear a mask.

Clearly, response to this virus is exacerbating already-serious political divisions. How will that affect the election in November? I don’t want to venture a guess. I will predict, however, that whatever the result, the other side will not take it well. Should the left lose, I expect civil unrest.