So, y’all know I can’t just go get on a plane and have a simple trip, right? Well, this flight to Dallas was under-booked. So, basically everyone sat on the aisle or windows, and we weren’t crammed in like sardines.
The lady at the window was nice. We chatted for a second. She asked where I was from and when I said “New Orleans”, so a Yat [native New Orleanian] behind me starts chatting and being a Yat. Fine. Whatever. The plane taxis to the runway, and as we are barreling down [it], someone’s cat starts howling. HOWLING. Well, I got tickled and started laughing. No one else found this funny, including the cat’s owner. Which….just made me laugh harder.
This cat was pissed. And scared. I looked at the lady next to me and said, “if he lets that cat out, it’s going to be nothing but a******s and elbows for the immediate future!” She starts laughing, and so now we’re both cackling to this cat howling as we reach about 10k feet.
The cats’ owner…he was not joining in the fun.
The cat finally settles down….but then we start descending [amidst what] was probably the worst turbulence I’ve experienced. Apparently, the cat didn’t like it any more than I did and started back up again. But this time, you could hear it running around, panicked in its crate.
Yep. That was funny too. And then….the cat takes a big ole nasty s**! So, the last thirty minutes I’m in a plane ALL over the sky and the plane reeks of cat s**t.
The dude (the owner of the cat) glared at me as he disembarked.
I said, “Please, tell me you’re going to New Orleans in two hours.“ No response.
Flag of Iran waving at sunset in their capital city, Tehran.
As I frequent news and social media sites after the assassination of General Soleimani, I notice again the divide that afflicts America. At ModState, we’re striving to create civil conversation and at this impasse I paused to try and gain clarity on the divisions. What I observe is an attempt for Americans to rush to their barricades. Without any hesitation, Americans demonize the opinions of those they disagree with without even attempting to collect their thoughts. Admittedly, I am aware that there is a segment of the population that withholds judgment for the time being. On the most recent episode DeViney and I take a moment to unpack the situation as it unfolds in front of our eyes. If you are unsure how to feel about these mounting escalations it would behoove you to take the time to explore the different aspects of the reality of what may unfold.
Across the political spectrum in the United States, the majority of Americans can agree that General Soleimani was an evil man. He was the architect of the proxy wars we have today. He is responsible for the death of civilians and American service men and women. His elimination from our earth should make no man or woman pause to shed a tear or wonder if an innocent man was assassinated. The President of the United States had a standing kill order on his desk for two months before ultimately authorizing the assassination at the Baghdad International Airport. His death was surgical and did not involve the death of civilians.
The utter hatred of President Donald Trump makes hating this act and finding fault in it easy. Ask yourself this question: Given the same situation would President Obama or a President Hillary Clinton have authorized the same assassination? The answer without much statistical analysis or unreasonable assumptions is yes. Regardless of how you think about President Trump his policies of isolationism counter the hawkish views of Hillary Clinton. Discounting this assassination because of the hatred of our president is unwarranted. What is more important is the narrative post assassination. We have a president who is unpredictable. You would not find a President Obama or a President Hillary Clinton threatening the elimination of cultural and historical heritage sites in Iran. Even though I firmly believe that the same decision would be made by most sitting Presidents today the narrative and rhetoric in the aftermath would be different. The rhetoric that President Trump is espousing is enough to make anyone uneasy of the potential consequences.
Ruins of a flooded, post-Apocalyptic “New Bordeaux,” we’ll call it. Don’t nobody jinx nothin‘.
Are we going to war? In my humble opinions I do not believe we are on the brink of World War III. What you might find are increasing conflicts in an ongoing proxy war with Iran. Iran cannot support a full-scale war with the United States and a war-weary America is not ready to support one that is widely viewed as avoidable. Since the beginning of Trump’s term we have seen a withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Deal and increased tension with the Iranian government due to sanctions. For many the deal was a disaster, but would we perhaps not be in this situation today if we had stayed put? This opinion piece is not meant to explore the merits of the Iran Nuclear Deal, but it is interesting to think about a world where we remained in the nuclear pact and didn’t inflict crippling economic sanctions on Iran. Would the Middle East be closer to peace in that world? Probably not. The proxy wars with (Russia-backed) Iran would continue, but we certainly wouldn’t have tweets from President Donald Trump threatening the annihilation of cultural sites.
If you are afraid of the destruction of cultural sites in Iran let your fears be dispelled here. If we invaded Iran, with the intent to overthrow the regime, we would need the Iranian people. You do not win hearts and minds by blowing up important cultural sites in their country. Any military strategist would advise against this and President Donald Trump is not a military strategist. Career officers and enlisted alike are not willing to give up their legacy, reputation and freedom at the expense of this act. Picture a dictatorship in America. A democracy-loving foreign force invades America with the hope to overthrow the authoritarian government and instill democracy. Now imagine that same force pulls into the Gulf of Mexico and carpet bombs the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in New Orleans at the response to the American authoritarian regime. Now that same foreign force enters New Orleans. Have they won the hearts and minds of those who would gladly see the dictatorship gone? No, instead you have a regional force hell bent on sending a message to the foreign force who have sworn to overthrow the dictatorship. The same would happen in Iran if we conducted this operation on their cultural sites. We would need the Iranian people, the very same people that in that country feel oppressed and love democratic values. Do not believe that the entire Iranian population is mourning the loss of General Soleimani.
There are more factors in play here than “supporting the troops” and the beginning of “World War III”. Instead of rushing to social media to give your opinion, stop and think about the strategy and reality. We have a moment in America where we can put away our political divides, our hatred for President Trump, or our undying “support of the troops” regardless of the cost. Let us think sensibly and rationally. Today is not Democrat or Republican, or MAGA or Never Trump. Today is a time to allow for rational conversation surrounding mounting tensions in the Middle East. President Trump can be unpredictable. Let us, as Americans, be the predictable common denominator with rationality and civil conversation.
To
say something needs no introduction begs the question, “So, why the [expletive deleted]
are you introducing it, then?!” As a bastion of the independent media, however,
with an escalating audience (you know who you are), we’re cognizant of both our
unorthodoxy and the disquiet it might cause.
The “Toynbee Tiles” offer up a new level of mad
A quick glance around the editorial side of ModState will show a dedication to our craft, which includes a serious commitment to principles, facts and getting to the proverbial crux of the macroeconomic and sociopolitical issues that keep us awake nights. What we do not take seriously, conversely, is ourselves. We take the cause and our craft, wielded in commitment to the same, quite gravely. But ourselves? One need only look for blistering examples from the author of this very article trolling ModState on our 2nd and 3rd anniversaries. Quoth former Senator John Edwards (D-NC), “But why?!”
Because our being able to vacillate between the serious, trolling and then self-deprecation, augmented by an indefatigable sense of style and having nothing to lose? Well, to the logo-less mainstream media (unless you count solely your name as a logo), they don’t know if that’s more confusing or dangerous. But for our discerning listeners and readers, the answer is a clear and present, “Yes!”
Rock & Roll, J. DeViney
#######
Ah,
perspective…
President John Adams to Face
Impeachment
08 June, 1800, BULLETIN!!! Former President George Washington’s papers, recently sorted and filed in the new Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., said to contain letters condemning President Adams’ “Alien and Sedition Acts.” This, coming in concert with outcries from erstwhile-compatriot Federalists James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, The U.S. House of Representatives has been forced to begin impeachment hearings, expected to begin Monday. Charges against the President will be difficult to refute, say James Callender of the Richmond Examiner, Matthew Lyon of the Vermont Journal, and Benjamin Franklin Bache, editor of the revered Philadelphia Aurora, the nation’s leading news source of record. These influential voices are united in their message that they have more than 200 witnesses ready to testify against the sitting president and his illegal and unconstitutional activities, which resulted in many innocent men being detained, jailed, and ruined politically and financially.
No conflict, internal or otherwise, surrounded the Puritanical Utopia that was America’s founding. Move along.
“Man of the People” to be Impeached by People’s Representatives
08 June, 1834, EXCLUSIVE!!! Streets of Washington, D.C. filled with the same violently exercised mob which once hailed the “Hero of New Orleans” as their savior only six short years ago, now screaming for his head. The great Horace Greeley and his New York Tribune admits in an editorial to be published tomorrow morning: JACKSON ON HIS WAY OUT! The seeds of discontent seem to have begun being sewn on Inauguration Day, February 11, 1829, when the President-Elect refused to meet with his predecessor, John Adams, then forced the resignation of his entire cabinet over a barmaid, Peggy Eaton, not being accepted in polite society. President Jackson’s newly-named “Kitchen Cabinet” is now seen as it was and is: a violation of Constitutional norms and an impeachable offense! The Indian Removal Act of four years ago, now in full force, has meant the shattering of the Treaty of Payne’s Landing and the Treaty of Cusseta, among others, along with the rejection of the opinion of the United States Supreme Court itself in Worcester v. Georgia. Former Jackson ally George Briggs speaks to the New York Tribune, saying the president’s claim that there was “nothing to enforce” in the Worcester decision is clear evidence of an illegal and alien force operating in the White House, which must be brought to heel through impeachment. Newly-minted Postmaster General Barry predictably calls these charges “ridiculous,” but spoils system benefactors such as Mr. Barry are hardly to be paid attention in the face of the overwhelming support among states such as South Carolina, whose recent victory over the 1828 Tariff bill spelled the death nell of Jackson’s Southern power base. Hounded by John Calhoun and even former president James Monroe, “None can doubt that only Andrew Jackson’s removal or abdication can save our Union,” says Greeley. Proceedings to begin in the House of Representatives when it reconvenes early next week.
Why?! Why do we have one random as…one random pedestrian in this image of Jackson Square (in front of the St. Louis Cathedral), New Orleans?
Former
Compromise Candidate Now Condemned
08 June, 1860, FLASH!!! Inexplicably, even in light of the eminent removal of our sitting president through the exercise of franchise upcoming in November of this year, the U.S. House of Representatives, under the leadership of William Pennington, Whig Republican of New Jersey, have begun impeachment proceedings against James Buchanan. Shocked and saddened by the news, the president has withdrawn to the White House, comforted only by his adopted daughter, Harriet Lane. The dissolution of the Union seemingly upon us, President Buchanan is being held accountable for a movement which seems to have begun with the Whiskey Rebellion and came almost to a head as recently as 1832 in South Carolina with successful nullification of federal law. Buchanan’s Jacksonian supporters abandoning him as a Republican sympathizer, the merchant class in the North are equally unsatisfied with his “relief without reward” programs, though these legislative efforts put $17 million in the pockets of these industrialists and has bankrupted the treasury. Unless the president’s Mormon allies procreate in even more rabbit-esque fashion than is usual, the expected State of Utah will be unable alone to save this Chief Executive from the guillotine. It is no secret that Representative John Covode has long sought to move his committee toward recommending impeachment, and now, with the sudden vigorous support of Southern Democrats, it is abundantly clear that the only unifying issue in this nation, from bleeding Kansas to war-ravaged Missouri to confused and confiscated Nebraska is the IMPEACHMENT OF BUCHANAN!
[Image of POTUS Woodrow Wilson (D-NJ) courtesy of The New York Times]
America OUT of “League,” Wilson OUT of Job
08 June, 1919, THIS JUST IN!!! As President Wilson, fresh from his signing of the oft-scorned Treaty of Versailles, tours his own nation, the rumbling in Washington has become a full-blown thunderclap of disdain and indignation. Indignation…and IMPEACHMENT! The American dove of peace has shown itself too small to carry the olive branch—nay, LOG—born home by our wartime president. The League of Nations was to be the crown jewel in Wilson’s long career as historian and author. In Congressional Government, Wilson foresaw Europe’s troubles, but his “Fourteen Points” failed to predict a fifteenth: Hearings in the House of Representatives. These hearings hold him personally responsible for the 117,000 dead American young men in Europe. Missouri’s James Beauchamp Clark has already referred impeachment discussions to the Judiciary Committee and Democrat Chairman Edwin Webb. The upcoming Chairman, Republican James Volstead, has yet to take a firm stand on impeachment, although little love is lost between Volstead and Wilson, over the president’s handling of issues arising from Prohibition. In a surprisingly aggressive move, Democrat Whip J. Hamilton Lewis in the Senate has already assured that, upon receiving the declaration of impeachment, the Senate would move quickly to convict and remove President Wilson from office, for, “corruption, high crimes, and incompetence.” A surprise statement of support for this action has even come from Minority Leader Henry Cabot Lodge, positioning himself, no doubt, for a run at the presidency himself as Republican candidate in 1920. As the president works himself to exhaustion crisis-crossing the countryside, it remains to be seen if the crowds he entertains come out to witness the remaking of international relations, or simply the remains of a man soon to see his precious Treaty defeated in the Senate, and his hopes for remaining in the White House dashed…and that right soon.
Talking about what might’ve been and thinking about what used to be only goes so far. Certainly not one opposed to reminiscing, I was wracked with grief over the comments of yesteryear by largely isolated voices that nonetheless were well-positioned within an American minority group near and dear to both my heart and my roots. For those who know me, it goes without saying the sort of family I was raised in and the type of people I’ve associated with (even during rougher times in my life) thoroughly underline my long-standing friendships with members of the black community and my ongoing cultural appreciation for all that my neighbors from said community have brought into my life’s experience.
I regret that I let a few misguided voices influence me by saying things like, “Martin Luther King Day isn’t yours to celebrate.” I won’t be drawn into some bizarre dispute by brazen attempts at race-baiting which are not only off-base but, in all honesty, saddening.
Here’s what I’m not going to do: I’m not going to talk about how my parents raised me to treat everyone this or that way and be colorblind in my approach to people, and I’m not going to unnecessarily attempt to further “defend” my record by citing all of the momentous occasions during which I’ve had true fellowship with the black Americans I grew up embracing as one of us (fellow Americans). Furthermore, I’m not going to reference my friends within the community in a “Oh, they can tell you that…” way.
The truth is, I don’t have to. Again, those who know me are keenly aware of my “record” and those who don’t know me yet are predisposed to scrutinize what should be apparent from my published (editorial and multimedia) work aren’t going to be convinced regardless. Furthermore, no matter what I put down here concerning my thoughts on my friendships, experiences and history with the black community will be labeled pandering, “White Guilt”, tone deaf, et cetera, and we know what was written millennia ago about those “who have ears to hear…”
So, if you’re one (regardless of ethnic background) who believes that despite Caucasians being a global minority that we’re all born bigots, then you’re not going to have any patience for my being proud of my European heritage. That last statement has you confirming all you think you need to know about me and “my kind,” and, well, you know where the proverbial door is. Feel free to stop reading now. Go trifle somewhere else.
For the vast majority of Americans, whether of black, white, Hispanic, Native American or whatever derivation you strengthen the greater whole hailing from, you didn’t read my appreciating my own heritage as being a racist attending (or hosting) secret meetings preaching the virtues of genocide. You see that I’m willing to have a genuine conversation about something I’m sorry I didn’t address before now: Black History Month. You also see that I openly recognize that while I can (and do) sympathize with my fellow Americans, my fellow man, I also know that there are some things (both blessings and instances of suffering) that no amount of research, be it academic or anecdotal, will allow me to truly understand. That’s the truth be it where someone else is coming from, where they’ve been, how they feel, how they’re treated differently, how desperately they wish things were different, et al.
To those of you who “get” what I’m talking about here, please, by all means, let’s continue. As much as I don’t deem the under-40 crowd of Americans as capable of winning World War II or being ready to assume the proverbial mantle of power in our nation, none of that matters given the simple fact that we are about to assume said mantle.
Life isn’t fair. It’s a zero-sum game. As much as I’ve waxed eloquent in my studies, my editorial ramblings and elaborated upon during episodes of the ModState podcast, no amount of pleading will convince the vast majority of my fellow aspiring entrepreneurs and business types to see the world, their enterprise or their fellow man in the egalitarian manner I do. In my mind, what good does it do me to conquer the world and lose my own soul? You can’t take it with you; once my time is up, whenever that occurs, the dollars, the battles, this that and the other won’t matter so much. My investment (on all accounts, in terms of personal energy, time and, yes, my fiscal resources) in my fellow man is paramount. What good is any great struggle won if I didn’t love my neighbor? What good is any of that if I didn’t live the love I said I had?
It wouldn’t be worth printing, burning and then forgetting about. My words would be worthless.
Before I bore everyone to tears, I’m going to go ahead and admit I don’t know how to perfectly craft my entry into a modern racial discussion due to the increasingly hostile dynamics in our culture, and I don’t have a perfect framework to let me be all things to all people. Therefore, I’ll try to do neither.
I intend to conclude this article with examples, instances (or whatever other label is more apropos for the reader) of the kinship I have with my fellow man from the black community, of the affinity that I have for them amongst my neighbors to this day. It’s an imperfect formula, but I’ve yet to see a flawless path to discussing something this sensitive.
I get it. No, I’m not going to be caught dead saying I’m “woke” because I simply do not see that deliberately using poor grammar is the way for me to show how enlightened I am.
But I do get it.
Election Day 2008, I spent the entire period (after I went and voted for the Libertarian candidate, former U.S. Representative Bob Barr) with friends of mine from the black community in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Past Edwards, drifting over to Palmer’s Crossing, to “The Field” for an “Old Gold” (Old English) and a bonfire before concluding the historic occasion watching President-elect Barack Obama’s acceptance speech amidst a surreal environment. The roar of crowds across America, Hell, worldwide, at what happened was unforgettable, to be sure, but that’s not what I mean.
There I was, sitting at a table in the nearly exact middle of hip-hop and R&B club, “The High Hat 2000,” knowing full well that this was one of those moments in one’s life where you know you won’t pass that way again. Sure, I could (and did) go back to that nightclub, I could (and did) spend the day with my friends from the neighborhood juxtaposed to my own, and so on. But being there, not amongst the authors of the cause of the day but certainly being aware of the stakes and of the boundless reasons for celebration by the black community.
My sister and I had a conversation in the days following that historic Election Day in 2008, and we both agreed: had we grown up where those of European descent were the vast minority in both numbers and in the value placed upon us by the majority culture for over two-hundred years, if he (or she) was qualified for the job then, yes, we both agreed we would say it was time for a leader to be elected from amongst our own ethnicity or race (depending upon the circumstances of this scenario).
I also get the duplicity with which the line is uttered, “well his [Barack Obama’s] mother is white, so he’s just as much white as he is black.” While technically true, there’s something called the “One Drop Theory” that’s more or less a sociological paradox. To be sure, any significant percentage of African heritage tends to result in the black community claiming said “brother” or “sister” as “one of us.” But on the other hand, let’s not get it twisted: the white community, the Caucasians, we “European Americans”? Oh, rest assured, we know who’s white. So, yeah, that door swings both ways and…
…again, I get it.
But I also get there remain friendships in my life with my friends from the black community that are irreplaceable. One such friendship is with someone who rode with me to community college many days for a whole academic year. Fact is, he’d’ve done the same for me and endeared himself to my family to the degree that my mother said that he was undoubtedly someone I should never willingly let leave my life. Better still, in late 2010, he was my friend who showed up at my door and convinced me to go ahead and wrap up my paperwork and enlist. He’d recently joined the Army and so I went ahead and joined the Navy. Events and the nuances of our varying paths of service took us different places with unique stories, but recent calls from my original stomping ground of New Orleans to his residence in Jacksonville have rung true just how deep our bond was and remains.
It has been a long seven-plus years since he gave me that final push to join, but looking back another seven years to when we met in 2003 at Jones County Junior College (yes, that Jones, “The Free State of Jones), I’m sorry my book won’t do the narrative in-between then and now. A decade and a half can make putting a cohesive story together tough, but he’ll get the picture: we’ve both grown, yet the song remains the same.
It’s of little value to go on ad nauseam about my affinity (after twenty-ish years of playing piano and my eventual obsession with blues and Motown R&B). If I don’t get voted into exile from Earth for this outrage I’m writing, maybe I’ll do a part two on the black community and me.
Because, why not? If this seems a painstaking effort and a bit awkward coming out of the wash, maybe that’s because it is.
New Orleans, nigh to celebrating its tricentennial, is far from perfect. But “Las Vegas South” it is not; we know how to party. Being born in and returning to New Orleans after my five-year stint in the Navy, this is a metropolitan area where, if you can’t tolerate being in the immediate vicinity with a wide cross-section of different groups of people, I’ve known since I was “knee-high to a chicken” (as Stevie Wonder sang in ‘I Was Made to Love Her’) the party isn’t a really fun place for any of us to be at unless isn’t a place that’s really fun for all of us to be at.
However awkward and discombobulated my rambling is at this point, what is clear to me is the value in steering clear of those who, regardless of their background, can’t acknowledge that these are not easy topics to address. I’m sure there’s any number of ways I’ve disappointed my dear reader by failing to smoothly transition through the climate I find myself uniquely positioned in. Everyone’s joy and pain is unique, their position, their stratus, their struggle, their rapport with their fellow man, it’s all unique to their person. I am no expert on the way forward here. But I do promise to continue in the same spirit as this article: with an open mind ready to listen to solutions based in fashioning a better America today and tomorrow, not bogged down in the universal angst of the past.
The past’ll make you sick, and it leads nowhere. I’ll continue to be real, not always right, not always wrong, but transparent, upfront and determined to make things better to the extent I am able for those the sovereign God (in whom “…we trust”) has brought into my life’s journey.
Former Hattiesburg, Mississippi mayor Johnny DuPree (D-MS), longtime friend to our managing editor and co-founder, J. DeViney (R-LA) and his family
Well over a decade ago, I met with Hattiesburg’s then-mayor Johnny DuPree (D-MS) on four separate occasions in his office. The first time, the city’s administrative individuals attempted to send me away, citing the mayor’s schedule (which I am certain was intense, in all seriousness). Overhearing the dialogue outside his office proper, Mr. DuPree emerged and invited me inside. Now and again I would stop by to offer words of encouragement, and to discuss matters of sociopolitical relevance to the Gulf South region. A year or so after my late 2010 enlistment in the US Navy, my mother was out and about in South Mississippi and saw Mayor DuPree at a downtown civic function, and she went across the room to speak to him and thank him for attending. When she began to introduce herself, the mayor smiled and graciously interrupted, “Oh, I remember you: you’re Jonathan DeViney’s mother.”
I’m sure some folks could try, so I’d love to hear the arguments made about how this sort of discourse couldn’t/shouldn’t/wouldn’t happen between a white kid in his late high school and early college years and a black mayor of a Gulf South town.
But it did.
And, for future reference, Dr. King is someone for me to celebrate and embrace, and I do. Was he perfect? Oh, well on that note, when are our icons perfect? Only in the reruns.
As an enlisted team lead while stationed at Walter Reed, I agreed that the black Sailors on duty the day Dr. King’s monument was unveiled in DC should’ve been granted “special liberty” (military-speak for time off without taking earned leave) to attend the ceremony. Our chief was not in the mood to give my urgings any significant weight, but that’s besides the point: I saw the value in it and made the effort.
Senator Edward Brooke (R-MA)
Dr. King embodied the value of strength under reserve, of realizing the ability to violently reinforce one’s point of view didn’t mean you should. Similarly, Rosa Parks showed incredible restraint by merely remaining seated and not punching the imbecile harassing her in the throat. Senator Edward Brooke (R-MA) [Edward William Brooke III] stood by both his party and his convictions throughout the years. Perhaps a topic for next time, if I’m permitted that latitude, is how very near Senator Brooke came to being Vice President when Spiro Agnew (R-MD) resigned on 10 October, 1973.
My point?
If you’re still with me, consider what would’ve happened, then, when Richard Nixon (R-CA) resigned on 09 August, 1974.
Why not? It’s a far better fiction to dwell on than the nightly news.
So, y’all know I can’t just go get on a plane and have a simple trip, right? Well, this flight to Dallas was under-booked. So, basically everyone sat on the aisle or windows, and we weren’t crammed in like sardines.
Yep. That was funny too. And then….the cat takes a big ole nasty s**! So, the last thirty minutes I’m in a plane ALL over the sky and the plane reeks of cat s**t.
But I also get there remain friendships in my life with my friends from the black community that are irreplaceable. One such friendship is with someone who rode with me to community college many days for a whole academic year. Fact is, he’d’ve done the same for me and endeared himself to my family to the degree that my mother said that he was undoubtedly someone I should never willingly let leave my life. Better still, in late 2010, he was my friend who showed up at my door and convinced me to go ahead and wrap up my paperwork and enlist. He’d recently joined the Army and so I went ahead and joined the Navy. Events and the nuances of our varying paths of service took us different places with unique stories, but recent calls from my original stomping ground of New Orleans to his residence in Jacksonville have rung true just how deep our bond was and remains.
