CSotD: A Body Beneath A Crown
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Here comes the king,
A body beneath a crown,
It's said he cannot even tie his shoes …
That's from a very funny play I was in, back in summer camp. I wish I remembered the whole song, because it's been running through my mind recently and for earworms, as with the kind in apples, the only thing worse than finding a worm is finding half a worm.
I only had to sing it backstage to swell the chorus, since I was playing the rightful but deposed king and didn't appear until the final scene, which I share because I think even those of us who are not on stage at the moment should join in to swell the chorus.
I agree with Chan Lowe that our sense of desperation is building, though I would certainly not want Mueller to rush things if he hasn't got the goods. We don't need another OJ trial in which obvious guilt gets a sympathetic pass.
If nothing else, he needs to hold off until 2019 and a new Congress, given that this one seems more loyal to their party than to their nation.
Jury selection is November 6, 2018. If then we still find ourselves in the hands of Quislings, well, fool me twice.
Meanwhile, here's our Dear Leader, as seen by Colombian cartoonist Mauricio Parra, and I don't think, after yesterday's bizarre press conference, that there is any excuse for self-deception on the part of his supporters.
I won't post Dennis Green's meltdown again, but Trump is who we thought he was and I hope we don't let him — or anyone in his camp — off the hook.
But speaking of things you've seen here before, I will post this again, because I'm seeing the excuses and the washing of hands and the people explaining things, and, at this stage, the only thing to "explain" is why you continue to ignore the obvious.
I understand it's hard to admit you were wrong, that you were fooled. A lot of swindles are never reported because the victims are embarrassed to admit they were gullible.
But my father's army unit entered Dachau, and he never told us very much about it, but he did come away with something that has stuck with me:
He was surprised, and dismayed, to find that his assumption the inmates would want peace and healing was wrong. They wanted the Americans to give them guns so they could go into town and kill Germans.
Understandable, he admitted, but not the spiritual cleansing he had hoped for.
And an interesting accent to Trump's condemnation of the minority of counterprotesters who stood up to Nazis in Charlottesville.
He also noted that it was a lot easier to whip up hatred for the Japanese because they didn't look like us. The Germans did.
Most of us, in the intervening 70 years, have modified our definition of "us," but I guess some of "us" have not, and it's a shame that we elected someone who explicitly supports those who adamantly retain that old definition, and who refuses to denounce those willing to segregate, denigrate, isolate and simply hate those who do not look like "us."
I miss my dad, but I'm glad he didn't live to see this, because, like Anne Frank, he was able to say "in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart."
So here's Clay Bennett on the topic of preserving "history."
I'm all in favor of preserving history, but not of preserving self-serving lies and illusions. The statues of Confederate leaders were not erected during the war, but later, as a monument to a failed attempt to preserve slavery and a symbol of resistance to Reconstruction.
And Steve Benson properly shows the base upon which they were built.
We were taught of the attempt at healing, of how Grant and Lee parted with a handshake, and the defeated Confederates were permitted to keep their horses to help with the plowing and so forth. And "Gone With the Wind" showed how horrible those brutal Yankees were in burning Atlanta and despoiling Tara.
But maybe a little more of General Sherman would have made it harder to deny the loss.
Aside from elevating psychopaths like Jesse James and William Quantrell into the pantheon of Robin Hood heroes, the refusal to accept defeat and surrender meant that, in first years following the war, those attempting to recover the bodies of Union soldiers for reburial were apt to be shot at.
And decades after Jim Crow Laws were finally removed, we still have politically correct textbooks whitewashing (heh) the history of that costly, bloody rebellion.
A generation after World War I, our fathers learned the folly of Armistice, and so did not offer the Axis countries anything short of unconditional surrender, and, while Japanese schools have done some scrubbing of their role in the war, there is nothing there nor in Germany to match the level of denial represented by those statues, and enshrined in those corrupt textbooks.
Juxtaposition of the Day
The delusion continues.
Artley depicts Trump sheltered by his staff and his own psyche from the reality of the horrors he has endorsed, while Breen shows his ongoing, contemptible lies and villification of those who stand up to Nazis and other white supremacists.
And, while the Prime Directive and my own sense of decency keep me from showing their work, I have seen cartoonists fling the mud of "political correctness" at those who oppose glorifying white supremacy and a longing to return to the days of Jim Crow.
As I used it above, "politically correct" currently means blindly, ignorantly catering to hatred. It means refusing to stand up to Nazis.
As for "many sides," Lincoln's anti-abolitionist opponent, Stephen Douglas covered that:
There are two sides to this question. Every man must be for
the United States or against it. There can be no neutrals
in this war; only patriots and traitors.
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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