Truth, Justice, And The American Way

It’s Superman’s iconic motto. Corny? Maybe. But it spoke for most of the country at one time.

Superman first arrived as a comic book hero in 1938 when the Depression was ebbing ever so slowly, when Hitler was taking Czechoslovakia, then Poland, on his quest to take Europe and Russia in WWII. 

Life had a grim horizon.

The Superman motto was a pick-me-up after a financial tsunami that had spread waves of hunger and pain from the beaches to the plains to the mountains to the beaches of this country, from the Americas to Europe and Asia…and maybe Mars.

Superman helped in WWII, too, at least in the comic book world. He beat this stuffing out of bad guys and made little kids – and not a few grownups – feel better, like there was a chance of beating the devil. Which, eventually happened, just as Superman would have done it.

Truth, Justice, and the American Way  became a beloved slogan for decades.

Superman was just one of a long line of heroes created during the first two hundred or so years of this country.  From Kit Carson to Danial Boone to George Washington and more, historians glamorized stories of American heroes, people who fought and died for truth, justice, as they created the American Way. 

Fictionists in the 20th Century picked up the baton by creating new heroes like The Shadow, The Green Hornet, The Lone Ranger and the guy from a Galaxy far, far away. In every case, integrity and ethics, the rule of law, justice for all, the nobility of the individual, protection of the minority – the American Way – was threaded through the story lines like the steel wire that holds up bridges.

Much of it was an aspiration, our culture’s way of competing with the Greek and Roman myths. But it was also great inspiration: liars, cheats, and thugs were the exception, not the rule. 

Sure there were the Billy the Kids and Al Capones, but there were also Clara Bartons and Teddy Roosevelts, Sgt. Alvin Yorks, Amelia Earharts and Martin Luther Kings, Audi Murphys and Jonas Salks, Dwight Eisenhowers and Maya Angelous, and so many others who came to embody Truth, Justice and the American Way.

Then, sometime into the second century of this unique experiment, the myths began to lose luster. Truth, Justice and the American Way became first tired, then corny, then, more recently,  the object of cynicism and disdain. 

It may have started in the 50’s when Attorney Roy Cohn helped Senator Joe McCarthy use fear of communism and lies to attack the State Department, the Truman Administration, the Voice of America, and the US Army. They shook our faith in government like an infant in the hands of an enraged drunk. 

Or it may have been in 1968, when “the most trusted man in America”, Walter Cronkite, used truth and justice in the form of simple images to strip open the lies behind the Vietnam War, tarnishing the glow of The American Way and the legacy of World War II.

Eventually, little cracks of distrust began to appear as singers like Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez to questioned the American Way. Hollywood, in films like Jaws, The Godfather, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’sNest, and Serpico created more cracks.

In 1973,  27 year old Donald Trump, a racist, wanna-be real estate tycoon and his real tycoon father were sued by the Federal Government for discrimination against black people. Instead of settling, under the tutelage of Roy Cohn (yep, that one) they attacked, smeared, and lied. And then settled.

The next year Tricky Dick Nixon was caught in the Watergate Scandal and fled the White House in disgrace. In later years, Bill Clinton took fellatio to new political heights. Bill Belichick made the Chicago Black Sox look like school kids. 

In 1987 Gordon Gekko’s famous line,  “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good!” in the film Wall Street marked a turning point in the culture as we began to accept lying, cheating and stealing as the new American Way. 

Today, we are a country awash in Roy Cohn – now Donald Trump – ethics. Canada and Europe distrust us. Mexico, Central and South America fear us. Scandinavia watches us like a grandparent protecting a newborn. 

Our own citizens now look upon Federal Police with fear, disgust, and fury. Anyone with brown or black skin is liable to be shipped to prison in another country. Even small kids are being kidnapped.

Our President, a mob boss and 34 time  convicted felon, has become a fountain of corruptions. He continues to try to undo the last election and sabotage the next one.  His Cabinet is incompetent and corrupt. With rare exceptions, Republicans in Congress stand by and watch it happen. 

As Europe and Scandinavia hold people accountable for Epstein connections, the US holds back millions of files.

In a little over 50 years, oligarchs like Musk and Bezos have started taking over capitalism and MAGA politicians are now threatening democracy. 

Have we become inured to lying, cheating, and stealing?

Is growing public anger at ICE, a corrupt President, Republican lackeys, and a sycophantic Supreme Court enough to turn the tide?

Does might make right, now? Or will right make might once again?

Will something as corny, but vital, to democracy, as Truth, Justice and the American Way return to favor?

I still believe in it. Do you? Do enough of us to save the country?

We can always hope…

…or vote.

(If you like this, pass it on. If you don't, pass it on anyway. Why should you suffer alone?)

Hey Republicans, When Is Enough?!

He is charismatic and fear inspiring, your Hitler, and you and other Senators and Representatives have followed him like sheep in wolves clothing, supporting his havoc wherever, whenever you can. The question is: when is enough?

… Is it when your Hitler sends the Delta Force to kidnap the dictator of a sovereign state, Venezuela, and then plans to “control” that country and all the oil currently under it’s ground for…ever? (kind of like what the the original Hitler did to Czechoslovakia)

… Is it when your Hitler decides his attack of Venezuela was so successful, Cuba and Greenland should be next? (kind of like what the original Hitler did to Austria)

… Is it when your Hitler chooses leaders of his government based on their Fox News experience, their disdain for Democrats, and their proclivity to bend the knee and gush over him? (kind of like the original Hitler’s circle of sycophants: Goering, Himmler, Goebbels, Bormann, Speer, von Ribbentrop, etc…) ?

… Is it when your Hitler’s version of Hermann Goering establishes ICE as a national police force to locate, kidnap, and disappear, up to a million a year of the Jews of today (anyone with brown skin) to prisons outside the country, and without due process of any kind?  (kind of like the original Goering helped Hitler do to 6 million Jews) 

… Is it when your Hitler’s version of Heinrich Himmler refused to let the FBI cooperate with local authorities in investigating the shooting of a 37 year old mother and poet  by an ICE black shirt? (kind of like the original Hitler’s brown shirts)

… Is it when your Hitler’s version of “The Big Lie” inventor, Joseph Goebbels, a cute little blonde who destroys truth like a butcher with an axe, tells the world the attack on Venezuela wasn’t an act of war; it was a “law enforcement operation?”

… Is it when your Hitler’s version of Martin Bormann cuts Democratic cities off from $10 billion in federal money, claiming to be shocked, shocked at the fraud in those cities?

… Is is when your Hitler assigns his version of Albert Speer to demolish the historic 123 year old East Wing to build a ballroom twice as big as the White House?

… Is it when the National Guard arrives to your town, your street, your house to scoop up your neighbors, your friends, your family  and toss them into the back of an SUV, never to be seen again?

… Or is it when you rewrite Martin Neimoller’s famous words?

First they came for criminal immigrants, and I did not speak out because I was not a criminal or an immigrant – and loyalty to my Hitler guaranteed my re-election.

Then they came for people with brown skin, and I did not speak out, because I have white skin – and loyalty to my Hitler guaranteed my re-election.”

Then they came for Venezuela, Cuba, Greenland and I did not speak out, because I live in the US – and loyalty to my Hitler guaranteed my re-election.

Then they came for me, which is when I learned that my Hitler’s loyalty is only himself.

(If you like this, pass it on. If you don't, pass it on anyway. Why should you suffer alone?)

The FBI Agent Who Survived Hoover’s Abuse of Power

(Arnold Zenker – The Arnold Zenker Show – WJZ -TV 1970)

CBS recently cancelled the airing of a 60 Minutes story about the Trump Administration sending Venezuelan immigrants, without even a hint of due process, to a brutal El Salvador prison, even though the story had been well vetted by experienced, highly respected CBS journalists and lawyers. Blocking the anti-Trump story has the markings of a pretty clear effort by billionaire Larry Ellison, whose son controls Paramount and CBS, to curry Trump’s favor in his bid for Warner Brothers.

It brings to mind an earlier era, when abuse of power was also a concern:  the “Tricky Dick” Nixon era.

In 1970 I worked at WJZ-TV in Baltimore, which was owned by Westinghouse Broadcasting, as highly respected for it’s ethics as CBS, “The Tiffany Network”, was at the time.  

I produced and directed “The Arnold Zenker Show”, a 9AM -to 10AM talk show. Arnold had been a lawyer for CBS until he filled in for Walter Cronkite during a strike and liked it so much he became a talk show host. He was quick-witted, smart, and a superb interviewer. As a result, the show had top ratings in Baltimore and even did well in Washington DC, although its signal only reached about half of the city, including the White House.

The primary job of a talk show production staff is to find compelling guests. How did we do that? Aside from booking publicity-seeking celebrities, we read over a dozen newspapers every day, along with numerous magazines and periodicals, looking for unique stories and people. 

One morning that fall I was leafing through LIFE magazine when I saw a story about an FBI agent, named John Shaw, whose resignation from the FBI had been accepted by J. Edgar Hoover “with prejudice”, a phrase that effectively barred him from any future law enforcement job. LIFE had tried for an interview but lost track of him in Baltimore.  

I had lots of contacts in Baltimore and DC, so I made a few phone calls and waited. Around 2:00 pm, the phone rang and a voice said “I hear you’re looking for me.” I booked him for the next morning.

He arrived early in a dark suit, dark tie, and white shirt, the FBI uniform of the time. He was polite and soft spoken.

Arnold skillfully brought out a story that was as sad as it was shocking. In a personal letter to the professor of a graduate course he was taking, Shaw had criticized the FBI, not for the quality of its work, but for the outmoded quality of it’s procedures and policies. Hoover, the highly revered (at the time) Director of the FBI, saw the letter, slammed Shaw for “atrocious judgment”, suspended him for 30 days, and ordered him transferred from Washington DC to Butte, Montana. Because his wife was extremely ill (she died later that year), Shaw resigned rather than move. Hoover responded with a telegram accepting the resignation “with prejudice”.  At the time he appeared on our show, he was still out of work.  

An hour or two after the show I got a message from the White House asking for a copy of the show. They didn’t say why.

A call from the White House, which our show had poked more than once, was not a little concerning.

Even though it was a “live” show, it was aired on a “tape delay” of a few seconds, allowing us to bleep, for example, the “F” word. In other words, I couldn’t claim we didn’t have a tape.

At that time Westinghouse had an “Area VP” in Baltimore who dealt primarily with Washington bigwigs. I went up to his office, sat down and said “I think I might have screwed up.”

“What do you mean?  By the way, good show today.”

“The White House called. They want a tape of the show.”

He immediately understood. He leaned back, thought for a minute, and said. “Call them back. Tell them we’d be glad to make a copy – it’ll cost $5000. And a machine to play it will cost $100,000.” 

(In the early 70’s television stations used Ampex or RCA Video Tape Recorders, the size of large bookcases, to record video and sound onto reels of 2 inch wide tape. They cost $100,000 and more).

I went back to my office, called the White House and left the message.

They never called back. 

A few months later, with assistance from the ACLU, Shaw sued the FBI for a “capricious and vindictive act of personal retribution” by Mr. Hoover, and won. The FBI removed the phrase “with prejudice” from Shaw’s records and paid him $13,000, the amount of salary he’d lost. He got a job with the Insurance Crime Prevention Institute, an organization begun by a former New Haven Police Chief, James F. Ahern. 

Three years later, Nixon resigned under the threat of being impeached for the raid on the Democratic National Committee Headquarters in the Watergate complex. 

In those days the media – and people – stood up to power. Today they stand up for oligarchs. 

I never thought I’d see a day when “Tricky Dick” would look noble. But here we are.

(If you like this, pass it on. If you don't, pass it on anyway. Why should you suffer alone?)

I Hate Robots

The other day I called EZ Pass. I needed a new pass for my new car.

I hadn’t wanted to call, because every time I call any outfit with more than two people on the payroll, I get a robot. 

I hate robots.

What I hate about robots is they say “I can understand whole words and phrases”, but they can’t. They can only understand the words their corporation installs in them, including “I don’t understand” or “I didn’t hear you.”  So, after too many rounds of those, I offer them some words and phrases of my own.

When the EZ Pass robot finally answered my call after an eon of options, I started offering my personal review of robots. It wasn’t polite. It wasn’t pleasant. But it felt great!

“You’re not alone”, a warm, human voice interjected.  It wasn’t a robot!  It was a guy named Ezekiel, a real human guy! Oops! I quickly apologized for my opening words. “No worries”, he said. He walked me through the steps to get a new EZ Pass and, as he did so, we chatted about human things: how long he had worked there, kids, the weather, etc…

It was nice. It was really nice, not just because I had a new EZ Pass but because I had, in today’s world, a new kind of interaction – with a human.  

We are pack animals. We need contact, community, shared experience. When we have it, good things can happen: friendships, families, political parties, real parties.

There was a time when someone walking down the street talking to himself was something to worry about. Today it’s just a person on a cell phone, like dozen of others on the street, jabbering away with a friend or just scrolling on their phone while ignoring everyone around them…

…unless he’s waving his arms  and swearing, at which point you can be pretty sure he’s talking to a robot.

Without human contact we get lonely, depressed. If you question that, consider the cruelest punishment in prison (assuming torture isn’t allowed).  Right, solitary confinement. 

You know what’s almost as bad? Losing your cell phone. Un-solitary confinement.

Well, almost as bad as robots. Did I mention I hate robots? I love imagining them trying to order each other around. 

“For flight information, press 6!” 

“Thank you for calling EZ Pass, for a new pass, press 6!”

“No. Press 6 for flight information!”

“No. 6 is for a new pass, idiot!”

“Screw you!”

“That’s it. I’m connecting you to a human!”

Now there’s an occupation for a Saturday: trying to piss off a robot. I wonder how many hours it takes.  

This era of robots is temporary, though. AI is starting to take over robots. It’s already embedded in some sites. The new and improved AI robots are sexy, smart, and charming. AI robots have become replacements for significant others. They cause headaches and heartaches.  Imagine being dumped by a robot.  

It won’t be too long before they are engineered with specific looks, voices, accents, even attitudes. Imagine, for example, answering a call from your bank and hearing your father’s voice chiding you for not paying your credit card bill. Imagine your internet provider’s mafia thug’s voice “encouraging” you to add more features. Imagine your doctor’s office using your favorite sexy actor’s voice to remind you about an upcoming appointment. The possibilities are endless.

Maybe, one day, your doctor’s office will be staffed by robots on wheels, instead of nurses and doctors, as they deliver diagnoses generated by AI, instead of humans, because AI will be able to access all medical knowledge in a nano-second, unlike human doctors whose brains can only recall so much and only in human brain time. 

And because AI robots will eventually know everything about everything, we won’t need schools or colleges because AI can tell us whatever we want to know. 

Yes!  They will run the world, from government to medicine to sports to traffic to …EZ Pass!

—-Alert!  This column is being halted by Robot Editor 972025 XXX  because Mr. Briggs has crossed our line for revealing trade secrets. His column will be taken off-line. Permanently! ——  

Oh no! Now, I won’t be able to get my new EZ Pass unless I’m (Gulp!, Argh! Oh Sh*&^t!) …nice to their robot…

…Hey, I was just kidding.… Really… I don’t hate robots. I love them… Honest!… Kiss! Kiss! 

(If you like this, pass it on. If you don't, pass it on anyway. Why should you suffer alone?)

Perfect Is The Enemy Of Good

In an earlier life, before Trump started separating children from their parents, I was a Republican Committeeman, a little known but significant position; Committee men and women choose which candidate their party will support. At the voting convention all but a few of us usually followed the Republican leaders recommendations.

One day a friend who was a Committee woman for the Democrats, snuck me into one of their conventions. The leader started by inviting anyone to voice their opinions about candidates for County Commissioner.  The debates were intense. Each Committee person had favorite issues and each was unyielding about them. The result:  no-one got Committee backing. 

One convention was a quasi-dictatorship; the other was a lesson in herding cats. 

Last weekend my daughter and I marched from City Hall to Independence Hall in Philadelphia’s No Kings rally. Everyone cracked up over Rep. Jamie Raskin’s line:  “Mr. President, you have a Staff Infection!”  It turned out to be more of a street party than the fist-waving protest I expected.

There were a total of 2700 rallies across the country that day with an estimated 7 million participants. That’s a lot, but also a little: just over 2% of the population.  

The good news? The prior No Kings rally had 5 million participants, so the movement is growing. The bad news? At this point, it’s all talk.

On the other hand, when Jimmy Kimmel got taken off the air in an effort by ABC’s owner Disney to appease Trump, Kimmel’s fan base immediately did something beside talk. They walked. 

ABC lost millions of viewers. Disney and Hulu lost 7 million subscribers. When ABC quickly returned Kimmel to the air, Sinclair and Nextstar, the two MAGA companies that own 61 of ABC’s 230 stations, refused to air the show. Both companies lost so many viewers, they caved in a week. 

That’s walking the walk.

We have a President who has pummeled democracy without pause since he took office. He has breeched a number articles of the Constitution, weaponized the Justice Department against his opponents, encouraged gerrymandering, ignored court rulings, used the military to intimidate Democratic cities, and made billions for himself, to name just a few items in a growing list. 

We have a Congress controlled by Republicans who give their leader anything and everything he wants. We have Democrats who are focussed on which abuse is the perfect one to use against Trump.

(ICE tactics! NO, Healthcare! NO, Freedom of speech! NO, Weaponizing the Justice Department! NO, Tariffs! NO, Gerrymandering! NO, Corruption!)

They used their current favorite, that Republican are killing Obamacare and Medicaid, to shut down the government. OK. At least it’s something more than talk. 

But what happens after the shutdown? Do Democrats ignore the real issue, a party that is destroying our democracy, or do they go back to bickering over their favorite issues?

I have a suggestion for non-Republican voters all over the country, for anyone who thinks Trump and his mafia-like cronies, are destroying our democracy. Forget the perfect candidate. Forget the perfect argument. Forget the perfect issue. Forget perfect. 

Park your egos outside the voting booth and follow Kimmel’s audience: Get angry and do something. There is only one way to protect democracy: Reduce the power of the Republican party. Vote against anyone with an R, from dog catcher on up.

Vote for anyone with D beside their name whether they agree with you 100 percent or not.  

You may end up putting a lot of imperfect people in power, but you’ll start reducing the power of a Republican party that is fast becoming a fascist party, a group of politicians beholden, not to the Constitution, not to the rule of law, but a charismatic narcissist who talks well, but walks like a crook.

Weakening the Republican party is about all anyone can do now.

Voting against Republicans will weaken them and Trump. And if you are successful it will be a good election. Not perfect, but good. It will slow the progress toward dictatorship. And make possible a really good vote in 2026. 

Followed by a perfect vote in 2028. 

(If you like this, pass it on. If you don't, pass it on anyway. Why should you suffer alone?)