Making progress

It seemed like a long time in coming, but when Stewart Rhodes, the leader and Cycloptic founder of the far-right extremist Oath Keepers, was sentenced to 18 years in prison on Thursday for his seditious conspiracy role in the Jan. 6 (2021) insurrection at the Capitol, it felt like progress.

It felt like progress even though the sentence didn't seem long enough. But I guess we'll take what we can get at this point.

It felt like progress because even two years hence, this odious person has compared himself as a political prisoner in the mold of South African anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela.

Sweet Jesus.

Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy. He'll be 76 years old when he completes his full sentence if he isn't pardoned by some right-wing fascist president first.

Presiding U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta certainly wasn't impressed with Rhodes' "political prisoner" claim, explaining that seditious conspiracy "is an offense against the government (and) the people of the country. You are not a political prisoner, Mr. Rhodes."

Mehta then went on: "...You, sir, present an ongoing threat and a peril to this country and to the republic and to the very fabric of this democracy."

Slowly, but inexorably, it seems, far right conspiracies, violence, and ideology are unraveling and revealing themselves for what they are. Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and several other Not-So-Proud Boys are awaiting sentencing for their part on Jan. 6 to block the congressional confirmation of Joe Biden as President. Hundreds of other Jan. 6 rioters have been charged and convicted, already serving well-deserved jail terms.

The whole concept of overthrowing the American experiment in democratic government seems ridiculous, since we change the government every four years with elections anyway. It's our baked-in revolution. Given that, doesn't a democratically elected government have the right to defend itself from insurrection and sedition? It's kind of what the Civil War was about, right? We've already been down this road once.

The charge of seditious conspiracy, interestingly enough, dates back to the post-Civil War era in an attempt to arrest Confederates who might still keep fighting the U.S. government. It's a difficult charge to prove because it requires evidence that can convict two or more people who conspired to "overthrow, put down or destroy by force" the U.S. government, or that they plotted to use force against the authority of the government.

Sentencing Rhodes to 18 years in prison is making progress. So far, so good. Only a few hundred more convictions and sentences to go, ranging from a former ex-president found liable for sexual assault to rioters pummeling Capitol police with the poles of American flags.

When did this happen?

I haven't quite finished with weeding my gardens and topping them off with a nice, rich hardwood mulch that ultimately makes the place look like it was professionally manicured.

The weeding requires me to bend over a lot. I don't have a motorized tiller, so I break the ground with either an adze or a mattock. I'll chop a little stretch of the garden that forms a horseshoe border around the perimeter of my backyard, pick out the churned weeds, then stand up straight to catch my breath.

Ouch. That was my lower back you heard protesting there.

After a moment to recover my resolve, I walk over to the pile of mulch, take my pitchfork and load up the wheelbarrow. I don't know if they make motorized pitchforks for this particular job, but I don't have one in any case. So I do it by hand.

Then I go to the area I just weeded and throw mulch over it. Looks good. Wears me out.

This was a job that once took just a couple of days. But I'm older now. In my 70s, if you must know. I suppose I could still finish the job in a couple of days, but I've gotten to where I work for just a few hours in the cool of the morning each day instead of the heat of the afternoon. I pat myself on the back for being smart about this.

And this coming from a guy who used to play golf in 90-degree weather. But playing golf and weeding are two different things. Most times, anyway.

One thing I've noticed is that when I do relax in the afternoon, everything that used to be flexible in my body now becomes stiff as a board. And it stays that way. For days. When did that happen? I used to be loosey goosey Brucie. Now I rise up out of chairs making strange guttural noises. I walk a lot slower. I take acetaminophen. I soak in water hot enough to melt wax. My back still hurts.

Hey, I really do enjoy piddling in the garden. It's mindless stuff, but it gives me time to be mindful, if that makes sense. Look, I'm not complaining. I'm just wondering.

I guess this is all part of the inexorable slide down the hill. Muscles lose mass. Bone density decreases. It doesn't seem to matter that I still go to the gym every morning. I ride a recumbent bicycle for 90 minutes, and it's about the only time of the day I feel myself getting loose.

Then I go back to working in the garden.

 

What a week

For a moment there, a thought crossed my mind immediately after former President and pocket insurrectionist Donald Trump was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation in the civil trial brought against him by 79-year-old writer E. Jean Carroll last week.

Trump, of course, is seeking a second term as President of the United States in his continuing effort to wreck American democracy while at the same time enriching himself and trying to stay out of prison. He's not even attempting to hide his arrogant ambition. It's right there in front of our eyes for all to see. 

If you want to see.

Anyway, after he was ordered to pay Ms. Carroll nearly $5 million in damages for an incident that occurred decades ago, I wondered if he would be put through a vetting process by the Republican National Committee as primary season nears and candidates begin to bob to the surface like moldy detritus from a shipwreck.

Surely, I whispered to myself because I didn't want anyone to hear my naivety, no political party would promote a candidate for President of the United States who is a sexual abuser. What woman could actually vote for a person like this knowing how he assaults women (a fact which has now been acknowledged in court by a jury of Trump's peers)? What man who loves and respects the women in his life – his wife, his daughters, his sisters – could vote for such a malignantly flawed person like this?

Then reality hit. Ahhh, those days are gone. Those were the days, weren't they?

Trump won't be vetted, of course. Consequently, the GOP will be as liable for sexual abuse as Trump, if for no other reason than by association. It's mind boggling that Republicans continue to defend this guy.

As if things couldn't get any gloomier, Trump suddenly appeared on my TV screen in a "town hall meeting" later in the week that was hosted by a revamped CNN, now leaning a little more to the right (one CNN shareholder, billionaire John Malone, said he wanted CNN to be more like Fox. Would that be the Fox that just settled a defamation suit by Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million?). It took only 30 seconds in for Trump's lies to start flowing: that the (2020) election was rigged; that he didn't ask Georgia officials to find the votes he needed to win the state (he did ask – it's clearly on audio tape), or that the violence of Jan. 6 was the fault of then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The familiar playlist of lies is too extensive to go on.

But even more appalling was the audience, purported to be invited New Hampshire Republicans. They mocked Ms. Carroll and clapped and hooted when Trump defamed her again (he never learns) by calling her a "whack job." They hooted and cheered when he said if elected, he would pardon many of the convicted Jan. 6 rioters now serving time in prison for sedition. They cheered and clapped when he labeled moderator Kaitlin Collins as "nasty." Sheesh.

In my view, this is clearly repulsive behavior from Americans presumably raised with principles of fairness and respect for one's fellow man. Those principles were nowhere to be seen Wednesday night.

The audience reactions to Trump, in a word, were deplorable.

We live in strange times. We live in a country that takes away abortion rights when it has no business interfering with a woman's bodily autonomy (it's called control); we live in a country awash with gunfire, where you have to register for a license if you want to drive a car but where there are no effective regulations for citizens to purchase military-style weapons; we live in a country where gerrymandering and voter suppression passes for Constitutional precedent; we live in a country based on an ideal that all men are created equal, but evidence of racism and religious persecution are increasing exponentially, it seems; we live in a country where even the Supreme Court, influenced by the outrageously wealthy donor class, is ridiculously out of step with the majority of the nation.

We live in a country given Constitutional directions on which way to go by the Founding Fathers, yet we appear to be so incredibly lost. We just can't seem to find our way.