Letter to Herald-Citizen on Mascot Issue- Nov. 16, 2022

 

A Liberal Dose, November 10, 2022 "Have We Reached Our Preston Brooks Moment?"

 

Note: this edition carries both my column from last week and this week's follow-up. HERE is a link to last week's column.

A Liberal Dose

November 10, 2022

Troy D. Smith

“Have We Reached Our Preston Brooks Moment?”

I am writing this before election day, but the election will have come and gone by the time it sees print. As I sit here on what to you was this past Sunday night, I can’t help but think that it is quite likely that the anger, and the violent rhetoric, which has me so worried will have increased -no matter who wins what, or who controls Congress. Last week I was outraged by the (very predictable to anyone paying attention) attempted murder of the House Speaker’s husband in their home. Little did I know what was coming -because, from some corners, it surprised even me.

I was not surprised that some conservatives (and Elon Musk, however we describe him) were repeating a totally fabricated story that Mr. Pelosi was attacked by a gay prostitute he had hired. I was not surprised that Donald Trump, Jr. tweeted a photo of a pair of underwear and a hammer, saying it was his Paul Pelosi Halloween costume. I wasn’t surprised that other people were posting similar bad jokes that minimized -and seemed to celebrate -the brutal assault of a senior citizen over politics, and more broadly made light of the very dangerous place Donald Trump has led us. I was surprised by some of the people who joined in. There is no minimizing, no successful false equivalency, of events like this and the attempted rebellion on January 6. My good friend John Gottlied, a couple of weeks ago, admitted that some Trump followers weren’t the most well-behaved, but that he had never heard of a conservative trying to kill a Supreme Court Justice. I assume he means the incident when people were protesting outside Kavanaugh’s house and one of them was found to have a gun in a case. They probably did have ill intent, and I condemn it. But I would point out that, A) conservatives have no current reason to be mad at the Supreme Court and B) a couple of thousand of them were too busy trying to kill the other two branches of government on live television. Many of whom also were armed.  It is not equal.

The jokes about Mr. Pelosi reminded me of an event that occurred on the floor of the Senate in 1856, during the lead-up to the Civil War. I, and many other historians, have used that incident to demonstrate that the country was on the dangerous path to war because they had stopped looking at each other as fellow Americans and human beings.

In brief, Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner (an abolitionist) had given a speech condemning the violence going on in “Bleeding Kansas” at that time between pro-and-anti-slavery citizens, as well as condemning slavery itself. I think he was totally correct. The problem was how he did it. He singled out SC senator Andrew Butler, who had recently had a stroke and whose speech was slurred, and essentially made fun of his stroke and made veiled references to his alleged raping of slave children. Butler’s cousin, Preston Brooks -who was in the House of Representatives -decided to challenge Sumner to a duel to protect his family’s honor. He was told that duels were for your social equals, so instead he beat Sumner almost to death with a cane while he was sitting at his desk on the Senate floor. He beat him until the cane broke.

Northerners claimed this as proof Southerners were brutal savages and could not be reasoned with. Southerners claimed it was proof Yankees deserved a good beating. From all over the South, people mailed Brooks new canes -one of them inscribed “good job.”

Political violence in Kansas led to more in the Capitol, with supporters of the perpetrator making it into a joke. It was all more kindling added to the pile, lacking only the final spark, which would be fanned by hatred.

I want to leave you with the words of Lincoln on his inauguration, when the flame had already started, and entreat us all to hear his words:

“The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

A Liberal Dose, Nov. 3 2022, "Political Violence Marches On, Unabated"

 

A Liberal Dose

November 3, 2022

Troy D. Smith

“Political Violence Marches on, Unabated”

 

This is the last edition before election day. It is, therefore, my final opportunity to fulfill my promise from a couple of weeks ago to talk about what makes these midterms so important. As is so often the case, reality stepped in to make my point for me.

Last week a man broke into the California home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, armed with zip-ties, duct tape, a hammer, and a list of targets. She, and her security detail, were on the other side of the continent and only her 82-year-old husband Paul Pelosi was home. The assailant tried to tie up Mr. Pelosi, who had the presence of mind to call 911 and leave the line open, which probably saved his life. He was hospitalized with a skull fracture, and his attacker taken into custody. Throughout the attack, the intruder had yelled “Where’s Nancy?” and told police his plan had been to tie up Paul and wait for Nancy to return home. It was soon discovered that the attacker, whom I won’t name, was a Trump-supporting, QAnon believing, January 6 endorsing ultra-right-wing conservative. He had been posting about conspiracy theories like “Pizzagate” and “The Big Steal”, and denying the Holocaust. He claimed his goal had been to kidnap Nancy Pelosi and bust her kneecaps with the hammer, so when she was wheeled into Congress Democratic politicians would see that "their lies have consequences."

Almost immediately, Fox News hosts were attempting to perform sleight-of-hand (AKA misdirection) by proclaiming the attack was proof Democrats were letting crime spiral out of control. As if anyone believed this was a random crime. As if no one remembered the hundreds of people clamoring in the hallways of our Capitol calling out “where’s Nancy” or stating on-camera that they planned to murder her… and several other people. I have spent column after column here warning that the political violence stirred up by Trump and his far-right enablers would probably happen again. This is just one example of it. If the police had not arrived when they did, we would probably be discussing a murder.

Some people are going to say that this attacker was just deranged, that his mental problems were the sole cause of this incident (and would somehow find a way to blame Democrats for that). Well, maybe he is. But is he any more or less deranged than the thousands of ordinary Americans who assaulted those cops at the Capitol? Or the millions who spew violent, threatening rhetoric across social media? I doubt it very much.

Some, on the other side of the political aisle from me, will downplay far-right violence by mentioning crime statistics in Chicago, or pointing to the handful of incidents when Black Lives Matter protesters were involved in violence. To say there is violence or dangerous rhetoric on both sides is not an equivalency when 90% of it is on one side in particular. And is spurred on daily by the guy these folks idolize for some unfathomable reason.

For petesake, those folks tried to kill cops and members of Congress -in broad daylight, on live television.

So there’s an important issue for you, political violence. Another one: absolute disregard for the law.

That should come as no surprise. Trump has been disregarding the law his whole life. And what greater disregard could there be than trying to hold onto power by directing a violent coup attempt? This is the Frankenstein’s Monster that we have unleashed, and it threatens to suck all the oxygen out of democracy.

I said last week that recently I have had some causes for hope, and I have. Some people have told me they are tired of it all, and want to go back to two parties disagreeing but working together for the good of the country. I hope that can change the tide. But some of the folks saying it is all “both sides” need to take a clear, hard look at where most of it is actually coming from, and own up to it. And certainly, most of all, not reward it.

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

 

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

A Liberal Dose, Oct. 27, 2022 "Please Allow Me to (Re)Introduce Myself"

 

A Liberal Dose

October 27, 2022

Troy D. Smith

“Allow me to (re)introduce myself”

 

John Gottlied started his first column by introducing himself and telling about his background. It occurrs to me that I never did that, I just jumped right in with the arguing part back in February, 2021. I think I was assuming that a lot of people knew me already -but this is a bigger town that it used to be, so I probably shouldn’t make such assumptions. I’ll remedy that now.

First, though, I want to say a couple of words about John. I’ve known him since the sixth grade. In fact, that sixth grade class at Findlay also included (among many others) our current state senator Paul Bailey and his future wife Amy. Now, I disagree with both John and Paul politically a good 75% of the time. Okay, with Paul maybe it’s more like 85%. But I still respect them both enormously, think the world of them, and consider them to be good friends. I can say that about a lot of people in this town, and I think many among us have lost sight of that attitude. That said, I thought John was an ideal person to counterbalance my opinion on here… because he will not take it easy on me. He will give me heck, and do so in a way that forces me to think. And that will go both ways, to the ultimate benefit of us both (whether we eventually agree or not). And we probably won’t even call each other names or threaten to shoot each other. That’s what America is, and what it should be.

All right, then, here’s my story.

I was born in Sparta in 1968. My mom was born here, too; my dad moved here from Overton County when he was eight. My grandparents were all from Jackson or Overton County, where their families had all lived for a hundred years or more. My dad’s dad, Doyle Smith, Sr., worked as a farmer for decades for Sam Breeding and his son Bob. Before that he had been in prison twice, once for making moonshine and once for selling it. My mom’s paternal grandfather, Andrew Dennis, worked at Hunter’s Funeral Home when the hearses were horse-drawn.

I graduated from WCHS in 1986. I went into mission work for the next three years, part of it spent in South Florida and part in New York City, working with Haitian immigrants. I served in French-speaking congregations, building on the three years I studied French at WCHS (one of them informally) with the beloved and lamented Mrs. Sarah Jane Thurman. That time spent working to help immigrants was one of the most valuable experiences of my life. Meanwhile, I supported myself (and later my family) by janitorial work for over twenty years. In my twenties I started to take writing seriously, and eventually got published in various magazines and anthologies, then having my novels published. It didn’t go a long way toward paying the bills, though, so at age 32 I started college at Tennessee Tech as a double-major in English and history. From there I went to the University of Illinois, where I earned my master’s and Ph.D in history. I was lucky enough to get a job at my alma mater and move back to my home town.

That’s the abridged version. I am a product of these mountains and hollers, and love them deeply, as I love Sparta and Tennessee. I want only the best for everyone in them. I have a particular passion for the rights and needs of the people who grew up poor like I did. That passion extends to the Natives who were driven from here, to my black friends who also grew up here, to the immigrants (of every shade and religion) who have come here for a better life. To the gay and trans folks. To the recent arrivals.

And it extends to you.

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

A Liberal Dose, October 20, 2022 "Vote to Support Our Schools, Our Teachers, and Our Kids"

 

A Liberal Dose

October 20, 2022

Troy D. Smith

“Vote to support our schools, our teachers, and our kids”

 

Late October, which means a young man’s fancy is wending toward the great Fall Classic…yes, election day. There is a lot riding on this midterm election, some of which I will discuss in coming weeks. For the most part, though -at least on a national scale -most of those decisions will hinge on decisions made in other states. But we still have a chance to make a big difference here in Tennessee.

I have to say, as scary as things have looked in the last few years, I have recently been seeing reason for optimism here in my little home town. I am encountering more people who are tired of the vitriol and the full-scale ideological warfare and who are willing to listen to what the other person has to say, and are then willing to once again “disagree without being disagreeable.” I have met more people who have expressed, once again, a desire to support the best person for the job rather than the one who has the right letter beside their name on the polls.

That’s why, this week, I am writing about something that I think a big chunk of our citizens agree on, and with which we can help make a difference.

I’m talking about education, and about treating our public-school teachers with appreciation and respect.

They have a hard job. They have to control a classroom of energetic kids, stretch their supplies to the limit and augment them out of their own pocket (which doesn’t have much in it), deal with sometimes unreasonable or angry -or absent and apathetic -parents, and spend their off-hours preparing classes and grading tests and homework. People talk about them having the summer off, but they spend a good deal of that time preparing for the coming school year. Plus, during the other nine months they work 12 or more hours per day, so it balances out to a year-round job anyhow.

And, more and more since the turn of this 21^st century, they have to do it all with the state government interfering left and right, adding to their burdens while cutting their budgets. At present, this includes a governor and a state legislature that wants to tell teachers how to do their jobs, including how to teach about the things they went to college to learn how to teach. What they can talk about, what they can say, how they can say it. It is a legislature that decides -for every school in the state -not only what books they can have in their library, usually with very little if any knowledge about said books, but that has decreed that teachers have to go through the libraries in their own classrooms and catalogue every book in them by hand -on top of their already maxed-out schedules, without falling behind. In some cases we’re talking about a couple of hundred books. More and more teachers are finding it easier to just… not have books in their classrooms at all.

And the governor. We have a governor that wants to pull funding from already suffering public schools -including rural ones like ours -to set up private charter schools at taxpayer expense that can get around state standards, to advance a particular political agenda. He brought in a private company -from Michigan -to set up those schools, and the guy in charge said the most reprehensible, insulting things about our public teachers. And to this day Bill Lee has not condemned those statements. On the contrary, there is a move as of this writing for a state commission Lee set up to overrule the many local school boards in Tennessee who voted against that company’s schools, and in favor of our teachers. Let that sink in.

OVERRULE YOUR SCHOOL BOARDS.

When you vote for governor, don’t just go blindly down the ticket. Remember all these things, and vote accordingly.

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

A Liberal Dose, October 13, 2022 "We As a Society Need to Put on the Brakes"

 

A Liberal Dose

October 13, 2022

Troy D. Smith

“We as a society need to put on the brakes”

 

My wife and I spent last weekend at Gatlinburg. The mountains are beautiful this time of year- which is why that place is so clogged with tourists you can’t turn around. I hate crowds, but we got a good deal, so there we were.

We were struck by how much Donald Trump merchandise was everywhere: in the gift shops, in the general store, even in several restaurants. It was like the many “Trump Stores” that went out of business after the last election had dumped all their leftovers into this one little touristy town. “Let’s Go Brandon” stuff out the wazoo, chintzy paintings of Donald Trump embracing Jesus and/or Ronald Reagan, T-shirts denigrating Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Biden, and so forth. A persistent theme seemed to be T-shirts referring to Biden and VP Harris as “Deez Nuts,” which made me wonder how many of the senior citizens buying them got the reference. A lot of mentions of “liberal snowflakes” and how overly sensitive they are, the irony of which always seems to go over the heads of those conservatives who are whipped into a frenzy by their outrage at every little thing that doesn’t conform to their worldview.

The thing that got me the most was a T-shirt worn by a guy in the crowd. It said “Let’s Go Brandon” (code for “**** Joe Biden,” for those that don’t know), and underneath those words was the silhouette of an AR-15 assault rifle.

On the one hand, all that pro-Trump merchandise was just capitalism at work. Those merchants know where they live and what the prevalent political feeling is there. They know what sells. I believe most of them also sincerely believe in the message they are promoting, as well.

It was the Ar-15 that stuck with me, though… and a handful of slightly less overt shop items that equated pro-Trumpism with (heavily) implied violence. It reminded me of the last several columns I have written, about the dangers of dehumanizing people who think differently than you and adding to that violent rhetoric that has, in fact, already led to violence and loss of life in the U.S. I’ve given examples in the past, but more recently there was a report that online references to a second civil war have increased by 3,000% since the FBI executed a search warrant on Trump’s Florida resort and found a slew of illegally retained top secret documents. Last week, due to the fact Mitch McConnell has supported legislation that would more securely close loopholes that might allow bogus claims like those made by Trump leading up to the January 6th insurrection, Trump said the Senate minority leader “must have a DEATH WISH!” This led to increased security being put in place around the Republican senator because of the very real possibility that Trump supporters might take that as tacit approval by Trump for them to murder McConnell.

It is a tragic statement about the state of modern American society that I would ever even have to write a sentence like that.

Listen, I know that liberals, too, can be crude and offensive in how they talk about their political opponents, and that some liberals have advocated or practiced violence, but A) they do it much less, and B) it’s wrong, no matter who does it. Last week Marjorie Taylor-Greene told constituents that Democrats are coming to kill them. Trump adviser Mike Flynn said (incorrectly, as usual) that governors have the right to declare war and we will see it happen soon.

This level of othering, fear-mongering, and justification of (or outright promotion of) violence… to hate your neighbor so much you want to kill them, because they are coming for you… is taking us to a very dangerous place. And we don’t have to go there… because most of this rhetoric is not remotely based on fact. We need to put on the brakes, now.

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

 You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

A Liberal Dose, October 6, 2022 "What Are You For? What Matters Most to You?"

 

A Liberal Dose

October 6, 2022

Troy D. Smith

“What are you for? What matters most to you?”

In the last few weeks, I have talked a lot on here about the dangers of using fear to divide people (or to define yourself), the duties of citizens to speak out bravely about issues rather than hiding their heads in the sand, and the important point that protecting individual rights and promoting the welfare of the community are not mutually exclusive.

These topics become more and more relevant the closer we get to election day. I am reminded of something one of my conservative friends (and I have a lot) said to me a little over a year ago, and which I wrote about at the time. “What are you FOR?” he asked. “You’re always talking about what you’re AGAINST, but what are you FOR?” I think that’s a very important question for us all to be asking as midterms approach. Too much of our time -all of us -is spent obsessing over how to stop the other person from achieving what THEY’RE for, or making sure our person is against the same things as us. Too many politicians stoke up voters’ fears to win elections –“vote for me because the other person is crazy and dangerous” -and spend too little time stirring up people’s HOPES. FDR was really good at building up people’s hopes, and soothing their fears rather than increasing them. At making people feel safe, instead of making them feel endangered. We need some of that today.

What are your politicians FOR? Find out. Find out, even if they are not from your party of choice. Compare it to what you are for and see how it lines up -again, regardless of party. And judge what they are for by their actions, not just their words. And, while you’re at it, determine whether they are trying to scare you into voting for them by telling you how dangerous people around you are, instead of trying to persuade you to vote for them by sharing their hopes with you, and by encouraging teamwork instead of enmity. Remember that feeling we all had in the weeks after 9/11, that we were all on the same side no matter our party? Let’s rekindle that.

Of course, to do that, you have to clearly know what YOU are for. You probably think you already do… but put it to the test. I challenge you: sit down with pen and paper, and list out all the things you are FOR. Saying “I am FOR stopping the other side from doing such-and-such” doesn’t count. That is an “against,” not a “for.” Write down things you believe in, and positive things you want to see accomplished. Then put them in order of importance, and see what the top five are -and see if the words and actions of the politicians seeking your vote demonstrate they really share your values. Here’s what I came up with for myself:

1.     I am for the protection of what Jefferson called “unalienable rights,” fundamental and basic things listed in the Bill of Rights. Freedoms of religion, speech, the press, and so on. This includes civil rights for minorities.

2.     I am for “promoting the general welfare” by ensuring that every citizen’s basic needs are met: health care, food, clean water, shelter.

3.     I am for addressing climate change in such a way as to prevent, or at least minimize, catastrophic results for our grandchildren.

4.     I am for education- public, supported as much as possible by our tax funds on every level, with politicians allowing the teachers to teach without interference, and funding them to do so.

5.     I am for a social and economic system that ensures equality of opportunity. Not a guarantee of equal success, but a guarantee of a fair playing field -what (Republican) Teddy Roosevelt called a “Square Deal.”

How about you? What are you for?

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE