Two Recent Cases of Eloquences for the Good
Lots of progressive sites are carrying a video showing Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, refuting the end run that C. Christie, the governor of Booker's state, is trying to use to bury the law that the N.J. legislature recently passed to allow same-sex marriages. Christie opposes those unions but for political reasons would rather not veto the measure, and he is saying that the issue should instead be decided by all the N.J. voters, in a referendum.
My own view on this matter is that people should be allowed to marry anybody they damn well please and who in turn would want to marry them, regardless of gender. This is even though I have no understanding at all as to why a man would rather marry another man when there are all these much more desirable and fitting and interesting creatures called "women" everywhere you look. But then I also don't understand why people like beer, eggplant, and rap or country music either.
Christie is quoted as saying that this issue is too important to be left to the "129 people" in the state legislature and should be decided by all the citizens. But if that's true, then what's the use of having legislatures of any kind? Should they then be left to attend only to the picayune stuff? --Well, that's not a bad idea, since legislators tend to be a bunch of picayune rascals anyway. But that means that all the really important issues would be at the mercy of whatever the prevailing bigotries in the state are at the time. The thinking on legislators, and judges, too -- despite the bad luck with them that the Greeks and the Romans had right from the start -- is that they're wiser than the general run of people and will usually make the right decisions regardless of all.
Mayor Booker's rebuttal to Christie was brief but complete. He seems to have been able to make it right off the cuff, and I was highly impressed, as I was with the general aspects of the man himself. I had vaguely heard of him some time ago, but I didn't know that he had become the mayor of Newark, and anyone who undertakes that job is to be highly commended for that act alone, because Newark could lead other U.S. cities like Detroit, Gary, and East St. Louis in being perennially under the worst kinds of distress. Mayor Booker has all the appearance and sound of being highly competent, and he seems to have the potential of some day soon becoming B. Obama the Second, not in the sense of the kind of person that Obama is but instead in regard to accomplishments.
It should be said, though, that Booker's eloquence was a slam dunk, because the trickbag in Christie's idea is so easy to see.
For one thing, those on Christie's side would think they're on to something by arguing that he is being eminently reasonable, since right now polls indicate that 53% of New Jerseyans are in favor of allowing same-sex marriage. But the truth is connected with the fact as soon as a person gets filthy rich, his next move usually is to perpetuate the filth by taking Republican stands, and that's why it's so much more financially profitable to be a regressive than it is to be progressive. This is openly and vividly exemplified today by a formerly little known billionaire named Adelson, who has almost single-handedly backed the N. Gingrich campaign with 10 (ten) million bucks so far, with more available. I thought there were campaign laws against such things, and I don't understand how that can be, but there it is. And thus Republican money could and most likely would reverse that N.J. same-sex measure in very short order if it was put to a referendum.
Another reason why Booker had no trouble in shooting gigantic holes in Christie's proposal was that it is the easiest thing in the world to say how the voting would have gone in all the segregationist states of the South, and elsewhere, as Christie says should have been done, back in the 1960's, if the Rainbow desire to gain their proper civil rights had been put to referendums. Thumbs down everywhere, especially since Rainbows were not even allowed to vote. And in fact, I am now wondering if Christie's notion will give the Republicans the idea of trying to realize in one big swoop their fervent and obvious desire to roll back not just a few but all the Civil Rights advances of the past 60 years by seeing if they can bring about a review of all the Civil Rights of so-called "black" people and putting them to state and even national referendums.
Meanwhile, the other instance of "recent eloquences for the good" refers to a Tunisian writer named Hele Beji.
A couple of days ago, in his Informed Comment weblog, Juan Cole presented a statement titled "We Are All Tunisian Jews" that he had lifted from a French publication, in which Ms. Beji made an all-encompassing and incredibly eloquent protest to an outcry that had been made by some Tunisian religious extremists, upon the arrival in Tunisia of a Hamas leader, with words like "Death to the Jews!"
She quite rightly roundly condemned this attitude on the part of Tunisians anywhere, in a deeply heartfelt statement that could be profitably addressed not only to the Tunisians but also to the successful revolutionaries in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and all the other Middle Eastern countries that have been rising up against their despotic rulers, and on beyond those to just about any revolution that has ever been made or will be made. This is because of the well-known tendency of a certain percentage of revolutions to eventually turn into tyrannies rivaling those that had just been overthrown.
An American patriot could sit back comfortably and say, "Well, of course that did happen in Russia, France, Cuba, and other places, but not here, as shown by what has not happened in the nearly 250 years since then." But these things take time. Consider for instance the numerous evil-minded groups of today that are collectively called "the Tea Party."
My own view on this matter is that people should be allowed to marry anybody they damn well please and who in turn would want to marry them, regardless of gender. This is even though I have no understanding at all as to why a man would rather marry another man when there are all these much more desirable and fitting and interesting creatures called "women" everywhere you look. But then I also don't understand why people like beer, eggplant, and rap or country music either.
Christie is quoted as saying that this issue is too important to be left to the "129 people" in the state legislature and should be decided by all the citizens. But if that's true, then what's the use of having legislatures of any kind? Should they then be left to attend only to the picayune stuff? --Well, that's not a bad idea, since legislators tend to be a bunch of picayune rascals anyway. But that means that all the really important issues would be at the mercy of whatever the prevailing bigotries in the state are at the time. The thinking on legislators, and judges, too -- despite the bad luck with them that the Greeks and the Romans had right from the start -- is that they're wiser than the general run of people and will usually make the right decisions regardless of all.
Mayor Booker's rebuttal to Christie was brief but complete. He seems to have been able to make it right off the cuff, and I was highly impressed, as I was with the general aspects of the man himself. I had vaguely heard of him some time ago, but I didn't know that he had become the mayor of Newark, and anyone who undertakes that job is to be highly commended for that act alone, because Newark could lead other U.S. cities like Detroit, Gary, and East St. Louis in being perennially under the worst kinds of distress. Mayor Booker has all the appearance and sound of being highly competent, and he seems to have the potential of some day soon becoming B. Obama the Second, not in the sense of the kind of person that Obama is but instead in regard to accomplishments.
It should be said, though, that Booker's eloquence was a slam dunk, because the trickbag in Christie's idea is so easy to see.
For one thing, those on Christie's side would think they're on to something by arguing that he is being eminently reasonable, since right now polls indicate that 53% of New Jerseyans are in favor of allowing same-sex marriage. But the truth is connected with the fact as soon as a person gets filthy rich, his next move usually is to perpetuate the filth by taking Republican stands, and that's why it's so much more financially profitable to be a regressive than it is to be progressive. This is openly and vividly exemplified today by a formerly little known billionaire named Adelson, who has almost single-handedly backed the N. Gingrich campaign with 10 (ten) million bucks so far, with more available. I thought there were campaign laws against such things, and I don't understand how that can be, but there it is. And thus Republican money could and most likely would reverse that N.J. same-sex measure in very short order if it was put to a referendum.
Another reason why Booker had no trouble in shooting gigantic holes in Christie's proposal was that it is the easiest thing in the world to say how the voting would have gone in all the segregationist states of the South, and elsewhere, as Christie says should have been done, back in the 1960's, if the Rainbow desire to gain their proper civil rights had been put to referendums. Thumbs down everywhere, especially since Rainbows were not even allowed to vote. And in fact, I am now wondering if Christie's notion will give the Republicans the idea of trying to realize in one big swoop their fervent and obvious desire to roll back not just a few but all the Civil Rights advances of the past 60 years by seeing if they can bring about a review of all the Civil Rights of so-called "black" people and putting them to state and even national referendums.
Meanwhile, the other instance of "recent eloquences for the good" refers to a Tunisian writer named Hele Beji.
A couple of days ago, in his Informed Comment weblog, Juan Cole presented a statement titled "We Are All Tunisian Jews" that he had lifted from a French publication, in which Ms. Beji made an all-encompassing and incredibly eloquent protest to an outcry that had been made by some Tunisian religious extremists, upon the arrival in Tunisia of a Hamas leader, with words like "Death to the Jews!"
She quite rightly roundly condemned this attitude on the part of Tunisians anywhere, in a deeply heartfelt statement that could be profitably addressed not only to the Tunisians but also to the successful revolutionaries in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and all the other Middle Eastern countries that have been rising up against their despotic rulers, and on beyond those to just about any revolution that has ever been made or will be made. This is because of the well-known tendency of a certain percentage of revolutions to eventually turn into tyrannies rivaling those that had just been overthrown.
An American patriot could sit back comfortably and say, "Well, of course that did happen in Russia, France, Cuba, and other places, but not here, as shown by what has not happened in the nearly 250 years since then." But these things take time. Consider for instance the numerous evil-minded groups of today that are collectively called "the Tea Party."
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 12:28 AM
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