“If You Don't Want People To Think You're Stupid...”

Alabama has done it again. For those of you who do not know or may have forgotten about the Judge Roy Moore debacle, let me remind you:

Roy Stewart Moore (born February 11, 1947) is an American politician, lawyer, and jurist who served as chief justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama from 2001 to 2003 and again from 2013 to 2017, each time being removed from office for judicial misconduct by the Alabama Court of the Judiciary. He was the Republican Party nominee in the 2017 U.S. Senate special election in Alabama to fill the seat vacated by Jeff Sessions, but was accused by several women of sexually assaulting them while they were underage and lost to Democratic candidate Doug Jones.[1]

Moore's campaign for senate was almost a terrible stereotype of southern politics. He seized every opportunely to be photographed on horseback and/or with a gun, and he engaged in an incessant babble about defending freedom from threats that were mostly imaginary.

When the allegations about his (Moore's) pedophilia came out and he did not instantly tank in the election polls, it seemed to Alabamans as if the rest of the nation was giving Alabama a great big horse laugh. Some pundits were asking how the hell Alabamans could even consider putting this miscreant in the U.S. Senate? This caused many Alabamans complain about the rest of the nation seeing them as provincial, red neck, simpletons. Basketball hall of famer, Charles Barkley, who was born in Alabama, offered this piece of advice to people who were thinking about voting for Roy Moore: “If you don't want people to think you're stupid, don't do stupid things!”

Alabama was bright enough to reject Roy Moore and elect Doug Jones, but as the sane people of this nation will attest, Alabama's election of Senator Tommy Tuberville was a huge mistake made because of the extreme right wing ideology that is so prevalent in the deep south. This time the nation is not laughing – not even in derision. The sanctimonious dullard, Senator Tuberville, is holding up the promotions and appointments of military commanders because he wants to violate the first amendment separation of church and state by depriving female members of the military the reproductive health care that was protected by Roe v. Wade. In doing so he is damaging our military and threatening the security of the United States. The long term solution is to kill the fascist elephant! I do not know of a short term solution; the ones listed by Politico are not very appealing.

The really sad thing is that there are enough delusional fascists in this country so that Tuberville can actually fund raise off of his threats to our national security and our constitution. This means we are facing an existential threat to our democracy. I am sure there are some rational people in Alabama who still believe in democracy and the rights stated in our constitution. I can only imagine their pain and frustration. Kevin, Charley, McCarthy and the MAGA's not withstanding, we are in this together.  We must remind people of that and of what is at stake if the fascist Republican Party remains a political force and threat to our democracy!

Herding Wild Kazoos

 At the May meeting of the Democratic Club to which I belong we decided to make our participation in the fourth of July parade a light, fun event. Instead of submitting our usual statement to be read by parade officials stationed at intervals along the route, we wrote a statement thanking all of the good people who helped their neighbors during what many are calling the snowmageddon of 2023. We also decided to play patriotic music on kazoos. I could not hit the high notes of the Star Spangled Banner when I was young. I am now eighty one and attempts to hit those notes today more closely resemble the sound of someone trying to dislodge a fish bone from his throat than someone trying to hit a musical note. I therefore objected to the inclusion of the Star Spangled Banner on our play list, but I was over-ruled. One of the members of our club is a gentlemen who was a drum major during his days in college. As I am sure many of you know members of college bands, including drum majors, take their music seriously. Kazoos, really? How tacky! But the humor of that was a large part of what we were trying to project, and our former drum major fully embraced the concept by offering to lead the kazoo band.

A half dozen of us even showed up at a practice session. A half dozen! As it turned out, many of our members brought friends and family to march in the parade with us, and a Democratic Club in the same region also joined us, as did a congressional candidate we support. The bottom line is that we had thirty people in the parade, and the vast majority of them were playing kazoos. Fortunately, one of our members recorded the songs we were performing and placed a sound system in a truck we decorated. We were forty fifth in the line of participants so we had some time to practice as we approached the parade route. The sound was a bit ragged and some of us may have been out of tune, but we were having a good time. I was out front carrying one end of our banner and could not see what must have been a pained or embarrassed look on the face of our drum major. Fortunately, it sounded to me as if things smoothed out by the time we actually started down the parade route. At that point I chuckled over the fact that a mental health group was right behind us, forming a buffer between us and a Republican club in the line of march. “Seek help before joining the dark side!” You have to love the symbolism, don't you?

It soon became apparent that, at least on this day, people along the parade route preferred songs with lively beats, such as “Grand Old Flag” and “This Land Is Your Land,” to songs like the “Star Spangled Banner” or “America The Beautiful.” The lively beats also helped the fellow from our sister club who was dressed in an inflatable donkey costume and was dancing around our banner. Regardless of a few snide comments shouted at us about asses, most of the spectators were amused by the Kazoos and the dancing donkey. We were treated to a lot of laughter, hand waving, thumbs up signs, and words of encouragement. Five or six MAGA's tried chanting “lets go Brandon!” But our sound system and kazoos pretty much nullified them; they also received some sour looks from people near them. We were on a lark, and people watching us seemed to be having as much fun as we were. Nothing the Republicans tried broke that spell. One idiot even sprayed me with a super soaker, but it was hot by then and it felt good to be sprayed. I smiled at him and gave him a thumbs up.

The only down side to this is that I am wondering how I can get the tune of “This land is your land” to stop playing in my mind. I also wonder if our drum major will add “herding wild kazoos” to his resume. Probably not. You had to have been there.

Happy Independence Day, everyone!