Carl and Anne Braden and the struggle for Equality

I came across an article about Carl and Anne Braden this week while on Facebook, of all things.

The Bradens' story is pretty extraordinary. They were placed on trial for sedition -- and convicted -- for buying a home in an all-white neighborhood of Louisville with the intent of transferring the title to a black family. Carl spent months in prison on the Sedition conviction before being released on bond.

Carl and Anne worked tirelessly for racial equality in the US for a very long time. After Carl passed in 1975, Anne continued the work until her passing in 2006. I can't do their story justice in this format but there are plenty of resources on the internet. Here's another one that focuses primarily on Anne's work.

And now more than a half-Century later, there are still plenty of hateful white supremacists around. It's just that most of them have gotten pretty good at covering over their hatred with a thin veneer of respectability.

But it's also true that after Hair Hitler assumed power, many of them were/are happily letting their hate flag fly. That's only a little less common now that the former Racist-In-Chief is not squatting in the Oval Office.

So even though they now longer have the force of hateful and evil laws and the advocacy of a openly-racist President and his staffers backing them up, we must counter their machinations and actions at every turn as the Bradens and so many of others have done for so many years.

This we must do until they're compelled to stand down and slink away, discredited and impotent.

"Bulldog Ben" Basile

© 2021 Ben Lawrence Basile  

Watching with an unflinching eye

Watching, listening and reading the current media coverage of Donald trump is so frustrating. We have an ex-President who plotted to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential Election -- all of it right out-in-the-open, mind you -- and the MSM is still giving him that same nauseating, fawning coverage we all remember so well.

There are some journos and pundits pointing out how insane and dangerous this is, but they're few and far between.

No one is doing this as clearly and ably as Eric Boehlert, the journalist whose career at Salon and Media Matters and Rolling Stone made him well-known. His commentary on his newest project, Press Run, has been effective in shining a bright light on what the Media is doing with its non-stop, refuse-to-take-a-side coverage of our Insurrectionist-in-Chief: it's helping to normalize him and pretend that what happened on January 6th was no biggie. 

Today's posting on Press Run is very compelling. You can read the piece in its entirety here. 

Mr. Boehlert is one of the few in American Media who, witnessing our slow descent into Authoritarianism, is providing accurate, clear and unflinching commentary at what's going on.

We ignore voices like Eric's at our own peril.

"Bulldog Ben" Basile

© 2021 Ben Lawrence Basile  

Of Love, Grief and Death-- of Grief and Constant Change

Here's a post about changes. About changes, the passing of a friend in particular, and the way changes and endings come at you as long as your heart is beating.

Pebbles Bundy crossed over the Rainbow Bridge this afternoon. She was a few weeks short of her 12th birthday and had been suffering from a digestive condition for several months.

She was as sweet a cat as you could ever hope to meet. Gentle, sweet with a wonderful, mellow feline disposition. Food in her dish twice a day and some petting and stroking in the evening was all she ever asked of life.

When we went on our two day camping adventures she would watch us pack and go with an unruffled, mellow manner and greet us at the door when we came back home.

I helped Joan get her ready for her final trip to the vet as I was getting ready for work. Joan is a wonderful Cat Mom and it was her sad duty to take her to the good docs and staff at St Charles and be with her as she made that final journey.

I was relieved in a way that I had to get myself in to work while Joan made final arrangements. Being a part of that scenario would have added another layer of deep sadness to what has already been a challenging time for me.

I have been grieving the loss of another cherished relationship: Joan and I had come to a parting about three weeks before Pebble's time with us came to its own end. I'm moving back to Orlando next week.

As I reflected on the last three or four weeks, and what happened today, it occurred to me that Pebble's passing was -- among other things -- the last event where Joan and I would focus together on a matter of great and enduring significance to both of us; The final time we would be fully engaged in something that had the power to move us deeply and to touch a place in our hearts. The final time we would share deeply-felt emotions that no one else shared or could fully understand.

Changes and endings. They're a huge part of life. They keep coming. It's not going to stop. In fact, when we get to a certain stage of life, the changes accelerate, they fly by so quickly that we sometimes are hard-pressed to take in fully their true significance.

Some of those changes involve a death. A death of a friend, a family member. The death of a dream, of a cherished relationship.

It's not going to stop.

Hold on tightly to your friends, your loved ones. The friends who walk on their hind legs and the fur-bearing ones who love you unconditionally, with great ardour and whose love has the power to touch us in the deepest places in our hearts.

Hold tightly to them when the fire of love burns brightest. Love them, return their love and release them to the love, care and wisdom of the Universe when a time of ending comes.

And trust that your love -- mingled with theirs -- and the memories of shared experiences, of your time together will sustain you.

Sustain you and offer a sweet note of consolation. Especially if you must walk life's path alone for a time.

Healing Love to all of you. And all whom you love.




A loving, grieving and hopeful man, I am,


"Bulldog Ben" Basile 

© 2021 Ben Lawrence Basile

Photo credit Joanie Bundy

Happy Labor Day 2021

 I do want to wish a most happy Labor Day 2021 to all of you who work for a paycheck.

I'm happy to say that I'm in that proud group of people and I always look forward to this day as it comes around each year. I'm a proud member of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and have been a Teamster as well.

The UFCW represents workers in retail, breweries and restaurants. Folks in the budding cannabis industry, too. The UFCW also rep's many of the workers in the meat packing plants that were on the front lines when COVID-19 was devastating that industry back in the Spring.

It's a very good thing, indeed, to be represented by a union and bargain collectively.

If you'd like to brush up on your Labor Day history, just follow this link.

Working folks, thanks for all you do. I wish all of you a happy--and relaxed--Labor Day.



"Bulldog Ben" Basile

© 2021 Ben Lawrence Basile

They've folded the tent in Kabul

 Unless you've been living under a rock, by now you've heard that the American withdrawal from Afghanistan is complete. And it was quite a spectacle, wasn't it?

The sharks who swim through the cesspool of Reich Wing misinformation and propaganda have been circling President Biden in the last few days, waiting for a chance to inflict a fatal bite.

That's been a tough undertaking as the terms and timeline for the US withdrawal were put together by the trump Administration back in February of 2020 in the Doha Agreement. As so many have forgotten, the Afghan Government that we put into place was not allowed to be a part of those negotiations.

The main criticism that's being laid at Biden's feet as the house of cards crumbles is that he should have waited until we were perfectly ready to get out all Americans and our friends and allies before the withdrawal was completed. 

That criticism is warranted in no small measure but it ignores the fact that Biden hit the pause button on trump's withdrawal timeline in order to get a handle on what was needed to get this massive undertaking completed. And that one delay for more deliberation and planning was all he was willing to add.

Airlifting 122,000 troops, citizens and allies from Afghanistan was no small feat. It could and should have been done better. But we are -- at long last -- out of the longest war in the history of the USA.

And for that, we should all be grateful.

"Bulldog Ben" Basile

© 2021 Ben Lawrence Basile 

Happy 4th to one and all

 

Today is the 245th birthday of the US of A and I hope it's a fine day for you and yours.

We're not doing a thing original here, I'll be firing up the grill soon and charring a few hot dogs.

Add the beer and potato salad and you're there. 

Okay, and some baseball! The Dodgers and the Nats will be facing off this afternoon, the Yankees and Mets not long after. I'll be enjoying a relaxing afternoon with my better half and feeling a lot of appreciation for my native land.

I did leave out the part where we have to be at work at 5 O'Clock this evening, but who's gonna turn down time-and-a-half, you know?!

Anyway, I hope your 4th celebration is splendid, with or without the barbecue. It's a great country we live in, isn't it? 

Here's to another 245 years!

"Bulldog Ben" Basile

© 2021 Ben Lawrence Basile

Burning in Seattle

It’s hot in the summertime. It’s always hot in the summertime.

But it’s getting hotter each time Summer comes around.

The Pacific Northwest here in the United States is baking right now and it’s a very serious situation. High Temperature records are being set on an almost-daily basis in that region of our Nation.

This timely and informative article treats this alarming matter in detail but isn’t wonky at all. I recommend it for all who’d like to have a closer look at what’s going on as we get deeper into the Summer of ’21.

If we’re serious about safeguarding the life and well-being of the Planet on which we all depend, we cannot merely sit on the sidelines while Gaia continues to warm.

The consequences of doing THAT are too bleak to contemplate.

Ben Lawrence Basile

© 2021 Ben Lawrence Basile