The filmmaker and historian Ken Burns has produced some of the best documentaries ever shown on American television. He has brought history to life with gripping stories of people and momentous events. He is the master of the voice of ordinary people, many of whom are extraordinary.
He recently gave the Commencement speech at Brandeis University. It’s one of the best I have ever read or heard. Here is the link. Read it or listen to it. It’s magnificent.
A memorable paragraph about the current moment:
There is no real choice this November. There is only the perpetuation, however flawed and feeble you might perceive it, of our fragile 249-year-old experiment or the entropy that will engulf and destroy us if we take the other route. When, as Mercy Otis Warren would say, “The checks of conscience are thrown aside and a deformed picture of the soul is revealed.” The presumptive Republican nominee is the opioid of all opioids, an easy cure for what some believe is the solution to our myriad pains and problems. When in fact with him, you end up re-enslaved with an even bigger problem, a worse affliction and addiction, “a bigger delusion”, James Baldwin would say, the author and finisher of our national existence, our national suicide as Mr. Lincoln prophesies. Do not be seduced by easy equalization. There is nothing equal about this equation. We are at an existential crossroads in our political and civic lives. This is a choice that could not be clearer.
Some conservative are arguing that speakers should exclude politics in a commencement address. However, when someone is invited to speak, the speaker generally decides the topics, unless there is some type of imposed censorship in the terms of the agreement. Otherwise, the speaker should be able to exercise his or her right to free speech and the content of the address.
I could not agree more about Ken Burns! He is as much a national treasure as everything else that is great about our country and it’s assets which he has reported on, like our National Parks. He is also terrific at revealing our nation’s flaws, including the dictator-wannabe who sees our federal land as only worthy of exploitation, as in “drill, baby, drill” and getting rid of the regulations that environmentalists worked so hard to obtain, in order to protect that land and the rest of the planet for our progeny.
If I were a mega-rich person, I’d buy Passport memberships for PBS (virtually the only thing on TV that I watch) for tRumpies, so they could see what Burns is talking about and get a better understanding of why tRump is so problematic for our nation and the world. (Many of the tRumpies in my area don’t watch TV, but most have smart phones so they could get PBS on there.)
I find it really challenging to believe this is true: https://www.rawstory.com/trump-campaign-announces-35-million-raised-after-conviction/
I mean, I know what stupid looks like, but I find it incredulous to believe that so many people will give their hard-earned money in small dollar donations to a purported billionaire who lies to them as often as he breathes –and when a jury just confirmed that he got caught doing it. UGH!
At least Independents are coming to their senses now: https://pro.morningconsult.com/analysis/donald-trump-polling-guilty-verdict-jury-trial
I do not believe claims by the Trump campaign about fundraising or crowd size. Remember how he predicted that his cult would cause chaos in lower Manhattan outside the courthouse. Don’t happen. Trump is a serial liar and loser.
Thanks, Diane! Great point about crowd size, too, since those numbers have definitely been dwindling.
The lies about donations and crowd size are probably marketing strategies, to GET his base to give more and come out for his rallies. I sensed there was something wrong with that report, but I tend to forget that you have to think like a self-absorbed crook in order to comprehend why he, his company and his campaign do and say virtually everything.
The largest crowd ever for his inauguration, although photos showed that Obama’s crowd was far larger. Everything he did, he multiples by 10.
Now he can boards that he is the only President criminally convicted!
It’s possible that the traitor did raise as much as they claimed since it may be very easy for outsiders (not US citizens) and billionaires to donate money to a politician.
The traitor himself laundered millions if not billions through real estate transactions with the Russian Bratva that includes Putin since Putin is the godfather of godfathers in Russia.
Where do all those donations come from? Does anyone check?
Selling gold colored sports shoes to raise money?
Selling the Traitor’s Bible to raise money?
Selling playing cards with the traitor dressed up as superheroes to raise money?
Those orders are paid for online and the internet is international.
I’ve read that the traitor doesn’t order the shoes, the Bibles, the playing cards et al, until after he has the money.
In fact, is anyone checking to see if anyone got what they bought through the traitor’s online retail site?
It’s possible that the traitor did raise as much as they claimed since it may be very easy for outsiders (not US citizens) and billionaires to donate money to a politician.
The traitor himself laundered millions if not billions through real estate transactions with the Russian Bratva that includes Putin since Putin is the godfather of godfathers in Russia.
Where do all those donations come from? Does anyone check?
Selling gold colored sports shoes to raise money?
Selling the Traitor’s Bible to raise money?
Selling playing cards with the traitor dressed up as superheroes to raise money?
Those orders are paid for online and the internet is international.
I’ve read that the traitor doesn’t order the shoes, the Bibles, the playing cards et al, until after he has the money.
In fact, is anyone checking to see if anyone got what they bought through the traitor’s online retail site?
I recall watching that inauguration with my roommate and seeing when tRump & Melania took the long walk afterwards. They passed bleacher after bleacher that was practically empty, and I commented to my roomate how often they were waving to nobody. After a while of that, they decided to not walk any further, got into a car and took off.
I’ve seen a lot of inaugurations and I had never seen anything like that before. So when he and his press secretary later said it was the largest inauguration crowd ever, I knew that HE knew damn well the crowd size was not anywhere near as large as they claimed. I suspected tRump was embarassed by all the empty seats and the fact that they had been caught on camera waving to no one…
Seems an appropriate place to post a link in support of what the fourth estate’s role in democracy ought to be. The Washington Post last week admitted it had not published, in real time, the story of the Alito’s upside down flag at their home. A reporter visited that location on January 20, 2020 to interview the Justice as to why he wasn’t attending the Biden inauguration.
The Nation has a few thoughts:
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/alito-flag-washington-post/
Also, Trump claimed on Fox that he never called for Hillary Clinton to be locked up.
Information matters.
Thanks for bringing this info to our attention, Christine!
The thing about tRump’s lie now is that people can very easily remember him repeatedly saying Hillary should be locked up, as well as his encouraging people at rallies to chant “lock her up” and how frequenly that occurred. Plus it can be so easily fact checked, with dates and places where he said what he is now denying he ever said (See fact check at link below)
He’s trying to make himself sound like a good guy now, too, for not locking her up after he became president, as if he suddenly cared about her, when the reality is that she was never even charged with a crime, and he also didn’t have the power to lock her up.
And like no one is going to notice the HUGE difference in circumstances now compared to then, with people calling for him to be locked up due to his having been charged and CONVICTED on THIRTY-FOUR counts!
What a self-agrandizing, dumbass, SOB liar he was, is, and apparently always will be: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fact-check-trump-falsely-claims-he-didn-t-call-to-lock-up-hillary-clinton/ar-BB1nuxir
And now the former guy is insisting he never said he would l”lock her up.” And people believe this clown.
Kudos to Mr. Burns. As he exemplifies, this is NOT a time to maintain some sort of political neutrality. Donald Trump is a clear and present danger to the United States, and no one of sound mind and decent heart can sit idly by. So, bravo. Well done, Mr. Burns. This is what a true patriot looks like, folks.
I watched Ken Burns saying a lot of this stuff just yesterday on PBS, and I was thinking then, “how on target and timely he is,” so check your local listings.
I like to think that there are still some decent Republicans out there who will go to the polls and vote for Biden to ensure that the deranged, criminal, seditious, traitorous, malignantly narcissistic, bloviating, predatory, environment-destroying, ignorant moron doesn’t end up in the Oval Office again.
I came upon the video of Ken Burns’ commencement speech at Brandeis University quite by accident early last week, was drawn to watch and listen to it several times, and each time found myself holding back tears but nonetheless weeping inside. I still weep inside. And maybe that’s because I had just finished reading Robert Sussman’s The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea.
Ken Burns makes clear our situation is not a “two sides of the story” challenge. And Robert Sussman gives suitable context as to why:
“It appears that with the blessing of many of the right-wing leaders of the Republican Party, the Pioneer Fund, its grant recipients, and its followers, the racist white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and modern day eugenicists, might once again be making inroads in U.S. society with their politics of racism, eugenics, and anti-immigration. The dream of having a politically active and publicly supported conservative movement that is focused on old-fashioned racism and on challenging cultural diversity may once again be coming to fruition.” (p. 300)
“Only education about the real nature of human differences and about the history of the concept of racism will help us escape from these continuing cycles of ignorance, hatred, and fear.” (p. 306)
Today, Trump simply manifests and represents the latest round of that “cycle of ignorance, hatred, and fear” but dressed in a White Christian Nationalism facade.
WOW. Thank you for sharing this, Diane. What a speech! I have to watch it again, because several of his quotes need to be made into posters for my classroom.
TOW, thanks for watching. Ken Burns is a national treasure.
I am simultaneously shaking and paralyzed , ecstatic and disappointed, happy and sad ,at the best example of a commencement speech that I have ever been the lucky recipient to receive .
The sheer brilliance of this commencement speech should be frozen in ambergris and then sent off to the Library of Congress .
One does not have to agree with the tenets presented in this speech ( although how one can disagree is beyond my ken) , but one has to consider , ruminate and then decide what one is going to do with which one has thought and felt .
I am do mesmerized by this speech that my hand is having difficulty typing this text .
But I think that is a good sign , a sign that my spiritual heart still beats and my mind still is open to possibilities.
Thank heaven our country produces people of this magnitude. At this juncture of our history , it is literally needed more than ever .
As Mr .Burns repeatedly stated : Listen . Listen . Listen .
Marc
Marc,
I had a similar reaction. No ghost writer. A man writing from his knowledge and experience. A man who deeply loves this country and what it might be.
A man who , like you , believes that good can win if the people that we love , the everyday Dick and Jane’s , fight the never – ending battle against evil .
Armageddon is not a final battle – it is a quotidian one .
BTW- thank you so much for your informative texts . I share them with anyone and everyone .
Thank you, Marc!
“I didn’t say, ‘Lock her up.'” –Donald Trump, today
I enjoyed this coverage of the Trump trial’s outcome; the headline was succinct:
Queens man convicted
https://queenseagle.com/all/2024/5/30/queens-man-convicted