WHY SO, WHY NOT?

By Edwin Cooney

Lunkhead's cigar was in full flame and he kept rolling it from one side of his mouth to the other as I took a seat between him and Dunderhead the other night at our favorite watering hole's new outside seating capacity.

As I approached, Dunderhead had just remarked to Lunkhead, "I thought you conservatives were “law and order” folks and here you go blaming the police. You never blame them when a woman or an ethnic minority is involved in a demonstration.”

"Look," shouted Lunkhead, “Presidents invariably break the law when the Constitution is in danger. After all, “Honest Abe” clearly broke the law in 1861 when he suspended habeas corpus at the outset of the Civil War. In addition, Franklin Delano Roosevelt clearly violated the Constitution when he imprisoned Japanese Americans during World War II. And, back in 1977, Nixon was right back when he told David Frost that when the president directs that something be done, it is automatically lawful. Finally, Thomas Jefferson violated the Constitution, thus breaking the law, when he purchased Louisiana from Napoleon in 1803. Nothing in the Constitution gives the president the right to purchase property from a foreign land! All of those presidents broke the law by violating the Constitution and no one ever dared to suggest that they go to jail!”

“Okay, big fellow," shot back Dunderhead. "Had Barack Obama lost the 2013 election to your hero Trump and gotten a whole bunch of gays, lesbians, welfare mothers, and deadbeat dads to put pressure on Joe Biden to alter electoral votes, you wouldn't have complained, right?

"Of course, I'd have complained!” said Lunkhead. ”What you lefties don't get is that someone like Donald Trump is an exceptional person who comes up only once in two or three generations. His strength is that he dares to dare while at the same time recognizing that only on rare occasions should extraordinary actions be taken."

“Nuts!" cried Dunderhead. "I can see where you're coming from now! After all, the killers of Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy — to say nothing of Sirhan Sirhan, John Hinckley, and others — also dared to dare, didn't they, Lunkhead? Almost as bad, you insist that if people are Southern enough, rich, white, straight, and Protestant enough, the sky's the limit regarding their attitudes and behavior." 

“Again, you just don't get it, Dunderhead," said Lunkhead. "As ‘The Donald’ exclaimed a few days ago, he is America's justice, its biggest backer, it's savior. When his time is done, the work will be done and we will go back to our normal ways of doing things.”

Then I asked the big question: should Donald Trump be subject to indictment for any crimes he may have committed while in office?

"Why not?” asked Dunderhead. “He's an American citizen like you or me."

"Absurd," insisted Lunkhead, “He’s established an expectation of decisiveness that no one has demonstrated since perhaps Harry Truman.

"I will stipulate," asserted Dunderhead, "that while it should never be easy for the government to prove its case, every living person ought to be vulnerable to punishment if they violate the law.”

"Let's get it straight," growled Lunkhead as he took the first sip of his new glass of scotch. “”Lefty leaders like Eldridge Cleaver, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Stokely Carmichael, George Jackson and Malcolm X all insisted they were the victims of political rather than of legal transgressions. So, why shouldn't President Trump make the same claim?”

"Wake up, Lunkhead!” said Dunderhead. “No one has said that President Trump is guilty of anything! He still has his money, his property, his big shot lawyers that he's finagling his supporters to pay for, and even his freedom! How much would you or I have by comparison if we were indicted by a grand jury? How much has he gotten out of you, Lunkhead?” Dunderhead asked as he took a sip of his beer and loaded his face with peanuts.   

"Let's get it straight," I said. “There's a distinction between a deliberate constitutional violation and criminal behavior. Lunkhead is right that a number of former presidents violated the letter of the Constitution, but we shouldn't institutionalize such behavior for future presidents by letting Mr. Trump successfully intimidate professional prosecutors.

"It's always difficult to draw distinctions between types of attitude and types of behavior in a free society. Certainly, politics reaches practically everywhere today. Fifty years ago, most Americans would have been sorry to see Richard Nixon go to jail because he was our president. If Jerry Ford had let former President Nixon go to trial and then pardoned him, Ford would likely have been elected to a full term in 1976. Can either of you imagine how different the United States, Central America, and the Middle East would have been had Ford, not Jimmy Carter, been elected?

“Jerry Ford's error is what we have to keep in mind. That error is why we have an obligation to discover what lay at the heart of January 6th, 2021! 

I think it was sedition! What say you?"

Then I beat it. It's just plain justice that for a change Lunkhead and Dunderhead paid for my drinks! Might there even be a way to manipulate them (as Mr. Trump surely would) to permanently pay for my libations? 

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

ARE YOU A GOOD INVESTMENT?

The answer to this question is as follows:

You bet your sweet bippy you are! Yes, I know those very words date me, but I can stand dating!

Since the late 1960s and 1970s, Conservative Republicans and Liberal Democrats have spent billions of their own dollars trying to sell you and me on the brand of government that best suits their urges and lines their wallets.Thus, since we live in a market economy, we're vulnerable to their slick phrases and desperate political rages. What gets lost in this era of chronic campaigning is the value of the “gold" they are seeking. That “gold” is your political allegiance.

Consider the following: since 1992 (eight presidential elections ago), only once, in 2004, has the well-heeled, right-wing presidential candidate won the popular vote in a presidential election. I  think that's largely due to their appeal. Their sole solution to our national concerns has to do with the well-being of their own money. 

Here's an historic reality. Back in 1835, President Andrew Jackson's administration paid off the last of our debt from the War of Independence. Less than two years later between the years of 1837 and 1843, we suffered our second national depression. (The first had taken place between 1815 and 1819.) This second depression occurred because Andy Jackson wouldn't stop playing with the banking system. He hated all big banks and stocked the small banks largely with paper-backed species rather than with gold-backed currency. Business and banking have had much more to do with economic depression than has government spending on welfare cheats and intellectual elites. 

As a student of history, I know of no depression that has occurred due to deficit spending. That's not true of recessions, but it is true of depressions.

    

All you've got to do is turn on your television, your radio, or your internet to realize rapidly how vital you really are to lots of the “big shots” in commercial advertising, money marketing assessments, state and national political calculations, and, most starkly since February of 2020, the socio/political welfare of these United States of America.

Too many years ago now, my beloved education instructor, Dr. Wayne Mahood, pointed out to us the number of roles a classroom teacher plays in a day's teaching. Utilizing what was called a “socio-gram,” he directed our attention to the various personality types that exist in any classroom and how they intermingle during the school day. The teacher's task was to know and understand how these socio-groups react during class time. Thus, a teacher is an instructor, an inquisitor, a policeman or woman, a counselor, and even at times a temporary parent during the day.

In addition to being a taxpayer, you are a customer, a consumer of public and private services, a worker, a medical patient, a religious parishioner,  and a parent responsible for what your children do and buy. Whether or not you pay income taxes these days, you reimburse business executives and stockholders any time they feel overtaxed.

Very soon there will be a political struggle between the forces of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden over the ever growing deficit. President Joe's forces will seek to minimize the deficit and Speaker Kevin's will seek to maximize it. Of course, all deficits ought to be paid as soon as possible, but our economy doesn't exist alone in the world and if the deficit can't be paid because the federal government is shut down, a lot of people here at home are going to suffer.

Too many people who regard themselves as “progressives” openly brag about their decision not to vote in future elections. If that's their decision, they should be blushing rather than bragging. When you take the time to think about it, you, the un-polled, un-consulted, and (largely due to your own personal devaluation) uncounted election day voter, constitute the exact element that will (in the words of Abraham Lincoln) "nobly save or meanly lose" the greatest hope on earth.

Winston Churchill once quoted the great Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli as observing that “the world is for the few and for the very few.” In 2023, every citizen in this country is entitled to some form of national investment be it a tax right-off, public assistance, Social Security or veteran's benefits. Hence, we've gone from being a world for the very few to world of the many.

Let's invest in each others welfare! A balance approach is the only way we can all safely prevail!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY  

MY DECADE OF CONTENTMENT

By Edwin Cooney

This Thursday, March 9th, 2023, will mark the 10th anniversary of Edwin Cooney and Marsha Lee Chatelain Ferri Cooney's marriage. Although I'll never try and tell you that things are perfect between us (after all, we're both too smart to be perfect!), speaking strictly for me, it's been just fine, thank you! Here's why:

From the very beginning of my existence, family life has been hit-or-miss. I've lived in foster homes, two orphanages, and I've boarded out with a family or two. Hence, family life hasn't been at all natural for me. My family situation vastly solidified in August of 1964 when Edith Gassman, one of my NYSSB houseparents, lovingly took me into her family without any conditions.

Then, in the fall of 1977, I married a gal called Marleen and we almost immediately had a very handsome baby boy we named Eric. Four years later, we had a wonderfully sweet and funny little boy we named Ryan. My union with Marleen was rocky from the outset and a quarter of the way into our 10th year we mutually decided to divorce. My marriage to Marsha ten years ago this coming Thursday marked a second chance to get something very important right. After all, how many second chances does anyone get to experience a do-over?

No couple’s life is easy as natural as it may be anatomically, emotionally, or spiritually. One of my junior college professors told us that even more than loving someone, a person must really and truly like that someone. (By the way, that’s only the second wisest observation you'll find in this message — stay tuned for the wisest.)

Of course, the older most of us get, the steadier we become due to experiences both bad and good. These last ten years have been a chance to listen better, to share more deeply, and to understand someone else's emotions and inconsistencies besides merely my own. The most important aspect of ultimate love is trust and, as beckoning as trust is, it can be challenging and at times even a burden!

Marsha is a lovely little lady. She's thoughtful, she anticipates worries and needs even when those needs aren't always comfortable. She's absolutely beautiful in church — she sings like an angel. She keeps me aware of her feelings no matter what her feelings are! Finally, she really and truly likes herself.(Have I ever mentioned that until I was 12 I was called “Eddie” because I disliked Edwin, my given name? Marsha calls me “Eddie Bear.")

No, things aren't perfect. I like sports and she doesn't. Her musical tastes are much more catholic than mine. She tolerates my pipe and cigar smoking as long as I keep my door closed. I'm very patient and she's the opposite — she wants everything to work out yesterday while I'll happily wait for tomorrow. Marsha is more of a morning person while I'm more of a night guy. She's a wonderful cook. She likes her food “hotter” than I need my food.

Thus, the last ten years have been pretty comfortable. Will that continue? I certainly hope so, but we're not getting any younger! The world is steadily changing. We like many things, although not all things, the way they used to be. Those we know and love are also getting older and that's downright scary!

I'd say that our marriage is pretty much a fifty-fifty proposition insofar as understanding and sharing go. As most of you are aware, Ronald and Nancy Reagan were far from my ideal couple, but Nancy once made an observation about marriage that I think is right on. She said that the ideal marriage is a 50-50 proposition. However, on occasion, it can be a 95 to 5 percent situation. (Wow, Nancy, that was really and truly a wise observation!)

I’ll close with an observation of my own. Here's how you know when you love someone whether or not you're married.

You love someone when you realize that their well-being matters to you as much as your own!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY