Schoolhouse Rock, 2023 Reboot

If you watched Saturday morning television in the United States between 1973 and 1984, you probably remember the educational film shorts that aired between the cartoons, known as "Schoolhouse Rock." Those animated segments featuring cheeky commentary set to catchy music, focused on specific themes in the areas of mathematics, science, social studies and grammar. I was a little old for them but one segment that immediately comes to mind was called Conjunction Junction which you can watch here. Another was about how laws are made in Congress called I'm Just a Bill.

It's probably safe to say an entire generation of Americans remember the concepts they learned on Schoolhouse Rock better than the ones they learned at school.

Today, while we're falling behind the rest of the world when it comes to our knowledge of math, science and language skills, Americans are getting a full-blown education in social studies, at least in terms of American law and government, thanks the hottest show around, featuring the escapades of one former president and his multiple run-ins with the law. 

Of course, like Saturday morning cartoons, the wall-to-wall media coverage of the travails of the exPOTUS is not to everyone's taste. To others such as myself, it's like a train wreck we can't turn our eyes from.  

Lucky for us because it provides a valuable lesson reminding us of many things we forgot from school about the Constitution, American politics and jurisprudence.

A lot of Americans myself included, may only have spotty knowledge about our Constitution, but we sure think we know a lot about its First Amendment, especially the part guaranteeing our freedom of speech. 

We all understand, or so I hope, that freedom of speech/expression is one of the linchpins of any democracy.

But we're learning, thanks in part to this version of Schoolhouse Rock, that like all freedoms, freedom of speech does not come without responsibilities. One cannot express a controversial opinion for example and expect it to be immune from consequences such as harsh judgement, public humiliation or even (in some cases) the loss of a job, just to name a few.

Nor is it absolute. The First Amendment itself does not enumerate limits to speech. That has been the role of the Supreme Court and over two centuries of precedent. 

Here are just some of the categories of speech that the Court has deemed not protected by the First Amendment. Engaging in them can land you into serious trouble with the law:

• Speech that violates intellectual property rights: You can't use someone else's speech or ideas and claim them as your own. 
• True threats: Statements that can reasonably be construed as an intent to inflict harm on the recipient. 
• Fighting Words: Statements that can reasonably be construed as intending to provoke a violent response.
• Child pornography: No explanation necessary.
  
• Incitement: Speech designed to provoke the commission of a crime.
• Defamation and Libel: False statements designed to injure a person's reputation.

As you might imagine, there is a great deal of latitude here, making the judgement of whether speech rightly falls under any of these categories challenging, and quite difficult to prove in a court of law. That's why lawyers get paid the big bucks.

Years ago, working in a photography department in an art museum, our chief curator was sought out by lawyers representing a couple who was under suspicion of producing child pornography. They had taken nude photographs of their young children and were turned in to the DCFS by the lab that processed their film. The curator was asked if the photos had any "artistic merit" or if he thought they were exploitive and pornographic. He referenced works in our collection of a similar nature by established artists such as Sally Mann, but in the end, took the route of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart who had this to say about pornography: "I know it when I see it." Then as Justice Stewart did when writing for the majority in a 1964 obscenity case, our curator added (in not so many words): "and this ain't it."   

Unfortunately, many of the limits to free speech can best be judged by the standard, "I know it when I see it", meaning there are few objective criteria to determine if certain forms of expression fall into the realm of non-protected speech. 

Not surprising then, there is a rigorous burden of proof required to convict someone of crossing the line into unprotected speech meaning that courts when in doubt, generally err on the side of the literal interpretation of the First Amendment.

Take the most conspicuous example of all the actions that got the exPOTUS into hot water with the latest federal indictment which happened before our very eyes, the attack on our Capitol Building on January 6, 2021. That morning from the Ellipse, just south of the White House, the soon-to-be ex-president gave a speech instructing his supporters numbering in the thousands, to march up Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol to protest the certification of the new president, scheduled for later that afternoon. 

In the speech he said this:

All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical-left Democrats, which is what they're doing. And stolen by the fake news media. That's what they've done and what they're doing. We will never give up, we will never concede. It doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved.

One of the pieces of evidence of a "stolen election" he cited is that in the presidential election held in 2016, he received 66 million votes while in 2020 he received 75 million, more votes than any candidate for president had ever received before. 

Unfortunately for him, his opponent in 2020 received 80+ million votes in the general election, and where it really counted, his opponent won the Electoral College by the same amount of votes the out-going president won against Hillary Clinton in 2016. If you remember, the exPOTUS declared that victory "a landslide", even though he lost the popular vote by three million votes. 

But the exPOTUS begged to differ, He added:

And by the way, does anybody believe that Joe had 80 million votes? Does anybody believe that? He had 80 million computer votes. It's a disgrace... Take third-world countries. Their elections are more honest than what we've been going through in this country. It's a disgrace. It's a disgrace...

We will not let them silence your voices. We're not going to let it happen, I'm not going to let it happen.

He then went on to thank Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, otherwise known as co-Conspirator One and co-Conspirator Two in his second federal indictment, for their stalwart efforts attempting to keep his presidency alive past its expiration date. It was Eastman who came up with the idea that Vice President Pence could reject the tally of electoral votes up on Capitol Hill that day (he really couldn't) and send the results back to the states where they would hopefully return a more favorable result for the president. He went on:

And he (Eastman) looked at Mike Pence, and I hope Mike is going to do the right thing. I hope so. I hope so.

Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election.... He has the absolute right to do it. We're supposed to protect our country, support our country, support our Constitution, and protect our constitution...

And Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us, and if he doesn't, that will be a, a sad day for our country because you're sworn to uphold our Constitution.

After rambling on for about an hour about how unfair losing the election was, he closed by saying this:

And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.

As we all know, Mike Pence didn't do "the right thing" by the exPOTUS that day, and the mob at the Capitol quickly got wind of it. Soon, shouts of "hang Mike Pence" were heard by throngs of Trump supporters, some of whom had the foresight to bring makeshift gallows, should the need for one arise. The mob would eventually breach security and break into and attack the most potent symbol of our democracy. To make matters worse, the soon-to-be ex-president did nothing to stop the attack. Instead, he threw gasoline on the fire by tweeting the following, AFTER he learned that the mob was calling for Mike Pence's head:

Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done.

Fortunately, the Vice President, the Speaker of the House, and the members of Congress who were in the crosshairs of the mob, all escaped the ordeal unharmed, largely thanks to the quick thinking and heroism of the Capitol Police. 

Unfortunately, five lives were lost that day including members of the Capitol Police. About 150 officers including metropolitan police and those from other agencies were injured. At least four officers took their lives in the months following the attack. 

Whether you call it an insurrection, an act of domestic terrorism, a riot, or merely a spirited protest that got out of hand, it's impossible to make the case that serious crimes were not committed that day by supporters of the president. And one would have to be delusional not to place at least some of the responsibility for the violence and loss of life on the words and actions of one Donald J. Trump on January 6, 2021, and the weeks leading up to it.

So, it would seem reasonable by the definition of the term mentioned above, that the exPOTUS should be charged with incitement, as without his election lies, his calls to interfere with the process of confirming his successor, and especially his very public pressure on and ultimate denouncement of the Vice President, none of this would have happened. That fact was confirmed by many of the rioters who were convicted of and are now doing time for their crimes that day, who insisted they were there to do the ex-president's bidding.

And if you believe as I do that the attack on the Capitol was indeed an insurrection (defined as violence against lawful civil authority with the intent to cause its overthrow) AND believe that Trump incited it, then he could be charged with an even more serious crime, sedition, which is defined as "the crime of creating a revolt, disturbance, or violence against lawful civil authority with the intent to cause its overthrow." 

In other words, inciting an insurrection.

To my eyes, I know an insurrection when I see one, and that's exactly what this was.

And I know incitement when I see it and sure enough, this has all the hallmarks of it.

The problem is, you may not see it that way. You might reasonably point out that in his speech, the president did not tell the crowd to break into the Capitol. You might also reasonably point out that at one point in his speech he told his supporters to demonstrate peacefully, or that he was not present at the Capitol at the time of the attack, (even though it appears that he intended to be). More importantly, any one of the twelve jurors picked to decide his fate may legitimately see it that way too, which would result in a hung jury if they cannot be persuaded otherwise by the other 11jurors. 

In the weeks since Special Prosecutor Jack Smith released his latest indictment, the exPOTUS and his supporters have gone all out to use the First Amendment as their primary defense, saying he is being accused of very serious crimes when all he was doing was exercising his freedom of speech.

Do they have a point?

No they don't, because the exPOTUS is not being charged either with sedition or inciting the attack on the Capitol.

Federal prosecutors don't enjoy having a high conviction rate because they choose to prosecute cases that stand a good chance of losing.

Even though he could have charged the exPOTUS with incitement of the mob that attacked the Capitol, Jack Smith, one of the best in the business, steps ahead of the ex-president and his defenders, took a pass on that one.

Instead, in the introduction to his indictment, Smith points out that the president like every American is guaranteed by the First Amendment, freedom of speech, including speaking in public about the election, and even to make false claims about it. The document goes on to point out the numerous recourses available to candidates to contest a disputed election including recounts, audits and legal challenges, all of which the exPOTUS took full advantage of. Once all legal means proved unsuccessful, the indictment alleges the exPOTUS and his co-conspirators, attempted other measures to challenge the election, outside of the law.

In the 45-page August 1st indictment which you can find here, the ex-president was charged with four counts of conspiracy to overturn the legitimate results of an American election, and the obstruction official government proceedings, all in violation of statutes listed in the main criminal code of the federal government of United States, Title 18.

The four counts and the statutes they violate are as follows:

1. Conspiracy to Defraud the United States (18 U.S.Code §371)
2. Conspiracy to Obstruct an Official Proceeding. (18 U.S.Code §1512(k))
3. Obstruction of and Attempt to Obstruct an Official Proceeding. (18 U.S.Code §§1512(c)(2),2)
4. Conspiracy Against Rights (18 U.S.Code §241)

In the legal sense, conspiracy is defined as two or more people planning a crime, then taking steps to implement that plan. The crime itself does not have to be committed.

Count one is referring to the electoral process as established by the Constitution. The defendant and his co-conspirators are accused of conspiring to overturn that function through "dishonesty, fraud and deceit" by falsely insisting the election was "stolen".

Remember, merely talking about committing a crime does not make a conspiracy.

The means by which they carried out their fraudulent enterprise to subvert the electoral process include:

• Pressuring government officials in states where the defendant lost by a relatively small amount, to replace the electors who would cast their votes for the legitimate winner of that state, Joe Biden, to electors who would cast their votes for the defendant. 
• Pressuring state government officials through the supposed authority of the Justice Department (who was not in on the plan), to conduct sham investigations into their elections. 
• Attempting to enlist the aid of the Vice President to "fraudulently alter the election results."

Counts Two and Three refer to the obstruction of the January 6, 2021 joint session of Congress to confirm the election of the next president, both the conspiracy and the actual act.  

The indictment concludes with Count Four. Here are the allegations in their entirety:

From on or about November 14, 2020 through on or about January 7, 2021, in the District of Columbia and elsewhere the Defendant,

DONALD J. TRUMP

did knowingly combine, conspire, confederate, and agree with co-conspirators known and unknown to the Grand Jury, to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate one or more persons in the free exercise and enjoyment of a right and privilege secured to them by the Constitution and laws of the United States -that is, the right to vote, and to have one's vote counted.

(In violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 241).

Despite being a well put-together indictment, it is still far from an iron-clad, slam-dunk case against the exPOTUS. 

As we've all read and heard ad nauseam over the last few months, the exPOTUS is the only president ever to have been indicted. Clearly, we are in uncharted waters here. Add to that the former president is currently a candidate for president who if nominated by his party, will be running against the current president whose Justice Department will be prosecuting him.

I pointed out in this post why I believe the accusations of the current president "weaponizing" his Justice Department against a political opponent are meritless. But the prosecution will have to convince that to all twelve jurors at the trial.

Fraud may be a difficult issue to prove. If deep-down in the recesses of his mind the defendant truly believed that the outcome of the election was "rigged" against him, could he really have been committing fraud which is defined as "wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain"?

In other words, if he truly believed the election was stolen from him, he wasn't practicing criminal deception, as state of mind is a key factor in determining guilt or innocence. 

Nevertheless, rigged or not, he still participated in illegal means to overturn an election, that much is certain. In the indictment there is a plethora of evidence to support the idea that the exPOTUS knew he lost the election fair and square, but on this too the prosecution will have to convince all twelve jurors. 

Then there is the idea of "Conspiracy Against Rights." 

Here is the opening of Section 241 of title 18 of the United States Code which according to the prosecution, justifies the charge of Conspiracy Against Rights:

If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same... they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

This statute was written after the Civil War and its chief purpose was to prevent the intimidation of black people attempting to vote. It was used extensively during the modern Civil Rights movement of the twentieth century for the same purpose. 

Once again it will be up to the prosecution to prove to all twelve members of the jury, that the statute applies to this particular case.

Regardless of one's feelings about the exPOTUS, our system of justice demands that he is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Like everyone, he is entitled to his day in court and to a competent defense. 

Also like everyone, if found guilty, he should be held accountable for his actions, regardless of his past job and his aspirations for future employment. 

In this particular case, there is very little in doubt about his actions and those of his co-conspirators. What is in doubt and what the outcome of a potential trial will determine, is the legality of those actions. 

I'm obviously not a lawyer so my opinions on legal matters are of little worth. But as the facts of this case are not much in question, I can say with a great deal of certainly that those actions, illegal or not, were wrong. Very wrong. They run counter to the very idea and spirit of a Democratic-Republic, the system of government we have kept alive in this nation for nearly a quarter of a millennium, the system of government every president is responsible for upholding.

I used to think the term "existential threat to democracy" when applied to this exPOTUS was hyperbolic, but I no longer do.

It's interesting to hear people who clearly support his bid for another term as president tear apart the indictment, which I suspect many of them have not read, saying that what the exPOTUS did may have been wrong, but the prosecution cannot prove that the actions were illegal. 

That perplexes me because if they admit what he did was wrong, why would they still support him?

For instance:

OK it was wrong for him to watch on TV as his supporters broke into the Capitol, cheering them on as they used flag poles as weapons against the Capitol Police and others, causing grievous injury to many, threatening the lives of his Vice President and other elected officials, and doing absolutely NOTHING to stop it. 

But it may not have been illegal so...

It was wrong to place the burden on his Vice President to do something completely out of his authority, then set him up as the fall guy, placing him in great peril simply for doing the job the Constitution required of him.

But it may not have been illegal so...

It was wrong to single out by name, dedicated, private citizen poll workers doing their job in Georgia, seriously compromising their safety and wellbeing by falsely claiming they were changing votes for him into votes for his opponent. 

But it may not have been illegal so...

It was wrong that co-Conspirator Four in the August 1 indictment, a mid-level Justice Department official and the president's pick to become acting AG in the waning days of his presidency, suggested invoking the Insurgency Act to have the military put down protestors when informed by others in the president's inner circle that there would be an uprising if the president overturned the election.

But it may not have been illegal so...

It was wrong to threaten state government officials with legal action if they didn't overturn the results of a legitimate election or "find" just enough votes in their state to put him over the top. 

But it may not have been illegal so...

It was wrong for him to not accept the results of an election proscribed by the Constitution after exhausting all his legal recourses to make sure it was fair, then throw this country into turmoil, threatening a constitutional crisis simply to remain in office, mocking our century's old tradition of a peaceful transfer of power.

But it may not have been illegal so...

And on and on and on.

Then there's this:

The indictment shows the ex-president received the advice of dozens of legal experts on his team including his own Attorney General, all telling him there was no evidence of election fraud significant enough to have changed the results of the 2020 election. It also mentions over sixty failed lawsuits, several audits and recounts, all refuting his claims of a stolen election. If after all that the exPOTUS continued to believe as his supporters claim he did, that he should have won the election, then he is a delusional fool with a pathologically flawed sense of judgement, as opposed to a mere fraud. 

Take your pick. Could the bar possibly be set any lower than that?

Maybe it's just me but I wouldn't want either a fool or a fraud as president. 

What Jack Smith's reboot of Schoolhouse Rock teaches us is that comprehensive as our laws may be, the framers of our Constitution and the legislators who have written our subsequent laws, didn't think of everything. For example, much to nearly everyone's surprise, there is no statute preventing a convicted felon from running for and serving as president, even from behind bars, something we may be confronting in a short time. 

In order to ensure that wrongdoers face justice, sometimes lawyers representing the State and the Federal Government need to be creative, as the Special Prosecutor, as well as the District Attorney of the State of Georgia Fani Willis* have been with their indictments.

That may or may not work in their favor as far as getting convictions but one thing is for certain. The most valuable lesson in this whole mess is this:

Just because something is not illegal does not mean it is not wrong.

Our country is at a crossroads and we need to think quite seriously about what kind of nation we want to be. Do we want a nation led by public servants who are democratically elected, controlled by the rule of law and a system of checks and balances, the most salient of which are term limits and a quadrennial re-election process? 

Or do we want to be led by an authoritarian ruler-for-life who does as he pleases and answers to no one or nothing other than his own whims? 

That seems like a simple choice. Unfortunately, I'm afraid the "Founding Fathers" overestimated us. It apparently never occurred to them in their wildest dreams that a significant number of Americans would go for choice number two.

 

*CODA This article was begun before the State of Georgia released their own indictment of the exPOTUS on August 14, which is why I focused on the August 1 Federal indictment rather than on both. Interesting that the two prosecutors, Jack Smith for the Federal government and Fani Willis for the State of Georgia, took much different approaches to their indictments. One could say the former used a scalpel and the latter a chain saw. It will be interesting to see how it all these 91 criminal counts pan out.  

What's Your Opinion?

"Everyone has a right to his or her own opinion." So says my eight year old daughter whenever she is asked to arbitrate a dispute between two people. My wife calls her the ACLU of the family. So strong and sincere is her conviction,  I don't have the heart to pose the question, "but what if that opinion is wrong?" The question at the center of all contemporary discourse I'm afraid will have to wait until she gets a little older and her judgement, more critical. By then she will come to realize on her own the hard truth that believing something, doesn't necessarily make it right.

Every fifth grader, (my daughter still has two years to go thank God) is taught there is a distinction between a fact and an opinion. It goes something like this:

A fact is something that can be proven.
An opinion is something that does not require proof.

Saying that Abraham Lincoln was the tallest US president is a fact. Saying that Abraham Lincoln was the most eloquent of all the US presidents, is an opinion.

Are you with me so far? OK how about this opinion: 

George W. Bush was not the most eloquent president.

Not to single out our 43rd president, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but facility with language was not one of Dubya's strong points, so according to most definitions of the word, he could not be considered the most eloquent president. Therefore by any reasonable standard, that opinion would also be a fact. Furthermore the opposite opinion, that Bush II was the most eloquent president, would be a falsehood.

Please note the operative words, "reasonable standard." This is certainly not a case of proof beyond doubt. One could make the argument that President Bush, despite his penchant for spouting off malapropisms like fireworks on the Fourth of July, was better at communicating what was on his mind than the current president, who may use the right words but also has a tendency of talking in circles and sometimes fails to get his point across. Since communication is the heart of writing and speaking, Bush may have been a more effective communicator than Obama, perhaps even eloquent in his own (to some) charming, unique way. It may not be a compelling argument but it's a valid point just the same.

So maybe it's not as simple as our grade school teacher would have us think; there is not a clear dichotomy between facts and opinions. Taking the point further, could there be truths that cannot be universally proven? I believe the answer is yes. They are our moral and ethical principles, the guideposts of our culture. This is a hotly debated topic, there are those who believe that morality is completely subjective, as moral and ethical principles vary from culture to culture. Truth on the other hand is purely objective, therefore as this line of reasoning goes, there can be no such thing as a moral truth.

This concept of moral relativism has been around for a long time, but gained steam since the Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th century, the so called "Age of Reason", when the traditional doctrines of church and state were brought under close philosophical scrutiny. Moral relativism essentially states there are no universal rights and wrongs, as those things are determined by the culture in which you find yourself. Some go so far as to claim that moral principals have no more universal relevance than local customs such as whether to address your uncle in the familiar or how much to tip a waiter.

Living as we do in a pluralistic society, we need to give some credence to moral relativism as I touched upon in my post on gay marriage. But can we honestly say that all right and wrong is purely subjective?

Here's a test; is the following statement fact or opinion?

Slavery is wrong.

If you believe that morality is purely subjective, you would be forced to admit that the statement "slavery is wrong", is merely an opinion as there are cultures that exist to this day who still accept and practice human bondage.

Furthermore, one cannot make a definitive argument against slavery without using established moral principles, which the moral relativists would have us believe, are not universally agreed upon. One of these principles, a cornerstone of our society, is the idea that all people are created equal.

Like moral relativism, this idea has been around since antiquity, but came to fruition during the Enlightenment, and was spelled out by Thomas Jefferson in the American Declaration of Independence. As we all know, Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, and his words explicitly left out women and implicitly excluded all but white men who could own property. Those very words however were used as a springboard for subsequent generations to be inclusive enough to include all people regardless of gender, ethnicity, race, or creed.

Interestingly enough, Jefferson did not preface his most memorable words by saying: "We hold these opinions to be self evident..."

Those "inalienable" rights  that Jefferson enumerates, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", constitute what some philosophers would argue are universally recognizable rights inherent in human nature. This "Natural Law" as it has been dubbed, should not be confused with the law of nature, which does not concern itself in the least with values or individual rights, has no distinction between right and wrong, or reserves any place for the concepts of justice or ethics. Nature simply adapts. As inhabitants of nature, we are subject to its laws; we all need air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat and shelter from the elements. We all die. These are facts, universal to all life. But we humans also live in communities where we pool our resources, divide our labor and look out for one another. In order for this to work, we are also subject to the laws of the community. Morals and ethics are human constructs designed to enable human societies to survive; as such they are built around a very simple idea, that you should treat other people as you would want to be treated yourself. This idea, often erroneously attributed to Jesus, has been around for as long as humans gave up being exclusively hunter gatherers. The foundations of every legal system, be it religious or secular, are based upon this "Golden Rule", which comes as close to being a universal value system as any we have.

I would argue that by any reasonable standard, the basic moral standards and responsibilities we (hopefully) hold ourselves to as defined by the Golden Rule, are universal and must be regarded as moral truths. Anything less I'm afraid would result in the collapse of civilization as we know it.

But just as we need to understand the limits of moral relativism, we need to guard against absolutism of any color. We all know about the religious zealots, be they bible thumpers or jihadists, whose slogan might just as well be "my way or the highway." Political ideology has stepped in and now gives religion a run for its money as one of the most significant propagators of intolerance in our society.

A case in point is this article that has been making the rounds on social media. Its author makes some valid points about the problem of hiding behind falsehoods wrapped in the guise of opinions. In the end however, the tone of the article suggests its real motive is to present a forum for the author to air out his own ideological agenda. It's title leaves little doubt about the author's feelings about anyone who may disagree with him: "No, It's Not Your Opinion, You're Just Wrong."

Given the reaction to this article, I'm afraid the piece will only contribute to the demise of intelligent discourse between un-like-minded folks, emboldening them to preach the "correctness" of their own points of view while further encouraging intolerance for the points of view of others.

The glory of modern technology is that it has opened up the world and given us exposure to cultures and ideas literally at our fingertips. Ironically, or perhaps because of that, we seem to have become more entrenched in our own intellectual ghettos, distancing ourselves from any thought or opinion that might challenge or offend us.

Intellectual discourse involving as many points of view as possible is the means by which we progress as a society. It is not something to shy away from but something to welcome and embrace. We may not always like what we're hearing, but to put it tritely, no pain, no gain.

It's true that we have no business hiding behind opinions that support falsehoods, but at the same time we must allow others the room to err, and hopefully they will do the same for us.

In the end, the best we can hope for is that reasonable judgement will sort out it all out.

After all that stewing, I can't help but believe that my daughter's belief in allowing everyone his or her opinion is pretty spot on. Ah the pure wisdom of an eight year old; perhaps they should be the ones running the show.

Slow down, Big Brother is watching

Automated cameras for years have been installed at selected traffic intersections in Chicago to catch drivers going through red lights. Mayor Emanuel has announced that he would like to see the use of these traffic control devices extended, especially in the vicinity of schools and parks to catch speeders. His stated reason is to protect the children of our city from reckless drivers. Well, who's not in favor of that? Of course if you believe that's the real reason behind the cameras, then I'd like to personally welcome you back from your forty year visit to Never Never Land.

Everyone else knows that at one hundred bucks a pop, catching misbehaving drivers red handed is a cash cow for the city. According to this article in the Chicago Tribune, in 2009, the red light cameras netted 59 million dollars for the city. The city certainly needs the money. As someone who has two school age children and who commutes to work primarily by bicycle, I should be cheering the mayor's new initiative. If only I had a dime for every time I was cut off on the road by a speeding driver and thought: "Where's a police officer when you need one?"

Yet I'm skeptical. As far as I know, studies on the effectiveness of Chicago's red light cameras have been inconclusive. As a driver for well over thirty years, I know that safe driving doesn't depend on slavishly adhering to the rules of the road, but on carefully observing and accessing traffic conditions, and driving accordingly. A safe driver could be completely aware of his surroundings, but be breaking the law if by going with the flow of traffic he is exceeding the speed limit. Another driver could be completely distracted by a conversation, drinking coffee and switching the dial of his radio, all at the same time. If that driver is traveling at the speed limit however, he is not breaking the law. Under the mayor's proposed new use of the cameras, the first driver would get the ticket.

A flesh and blood police officer can make appropriate judgments about safe driving, a camera and a computer cannot. It's just a cold and calculated machine that works 24/7, night and day, rain or shine, without lunch, overtime or a doughnut break, and won't let the driver off with a warning. There is no question of guilt or innocence, no mitigating circumstances, no conceivable justification for one's actions, just a photograph with the conclusive evidence, your car is in the middle of the intersection and the light is red, one hundred dollars please. You have a week to contest but what's the point? If you wait longer than a week, you owe another hundred dollars.

Small wonder the city loves them.

There's no doubt that there will be much opposition to Mayor Emanuel's plan, but I have little doubt that he will get his way. Let's hope that this technology will work to our benefit and will result in fewer accidents. Not that it matters but if they actually do the job they're supposed to do, I would support the speed cameras whole-heartedly.

Until I get a ticket.

Reinheitsgebot

That word and everything it entails meant that at one time, all was well in the world, at least in Germany. It was the law stipulating that in order to produce something and call it beer, (yes I'm writing about beer again, just a warning), you could only use four ingredients, water, barley, hops and yeast. The law was repealed in the 1990s when Germany became part of the E.U. and the laws of all the member nations were consolidated. German beers sold domestically continue to adhere to the law. But it is now possible for German brewers to export something they call beer that is something well, just a little less than beer.

What's the world coming to?

A wise man once said:
As goes beer, so goes the world.

I don't remember who said it, maybe it was Abraham Lincoln. Anyway, in this topsy turvy economy with our manic-depressive stock market and the country on the verge of class warfare, the world of beer in many ways parallels the bigger picture. After all, if you can't trust beer from a place that takes beer as seriously as Germany, what can you trust?

Yes friends, I'm saying that beer is a metaphor for life.

OK for those few of you who have continued reading after that last line, I offer my thanks for sticking with me.


The beer world is essentially divided in two camps, the macros and the micros. The macro breweries, Big Beer, represent the one percent of the population who control most of the wealth. As such they represent all that is evil with corporations, greed, capitalism, you name it. Their product is a watered down version of real beer, filled with adjunct ingredients like corn and rice that dilute the product, designed to increase the profit margin for the sole purposes of making the rich CEOs of the multi-national corporations who control them, even richer. Why do people drink their ghastly swill? Because the multi-nationals have brainwashed the unsuspecting public through their marketing campaigns, into believing that using their product will make them hipper, sexier, manlier, more attractive, more honest, and less pretentious than drinking the beer of the smaller, less visible, independent companies, the micro breweries who represent the other 99 percent, aka, the rest of us.

Instead of occupying Wall Street and Chicago, maybe today's protesters of corporate greed gone amok should be at the doorsteps of Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis and Miller in Milwaukee, both subsidiaries of the evil global corporations based in South Africa, or Europe or God only knows where. After all, Big Beer in all its incarnations, controls about 95 percent of the beer market in America, and one of its products, an appalling concoction known as "Bud Lite" has a 28 percent market share all to itself. The insatiable appetite of Big Beer will not rest until its opposition is thoroughly crushed, mangled, and wiped off the face of the map, or short of that, absorbed into Big Beer.

It's not like the old days when the hard working immigrant brewers who brought their recipes from the old country and founded thousands of small breweries in this country, all made wonderful beers and happily co-existed with each other in blissful utopia when the world was less cruel.

Well that's the story as told by the most strident beeristas, the real story isn't quite as salacious. It is true that brewing in America resembles the overall economy in its complexities, and its inscrutable system of hierarchies, ownerships and distribution. But the history of beer making in this country is also a fascinating tale of struggle, innovation, survival, and ultimately for the lucky ones, tremendous success and fortune.

Beer was brewed in the New World before the arrival of the Mayflower. But if you consider beer a genuine part of American culture, as anyone who watches TV commercials during sporting events does, the real dawn of the brewing industry in America came during the great influx of German immigration in the nineteenth century. The thirst of all those new arrivals needed to be quenched and one of the most valued professions among their ranks was that of brewer. Hundreds of breweries were founded in the cities with large Teutonic settlements such as New York, Chicago, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Detroit, St. Louis and of course, Milwaukee.

In America, the brewers did the best they could to replicate the beer they made back home, but found that the barley available to them on this side of the ocean resulted in a cloudy brew. They discovered that the addition of corn or rice (ingredients that would have been prohibited in Germany), provided the clarity their customers demanded. The beer those customers wanted was a type of beer known as lager, which was the prevalent, but certainly not the only style of beer found in Central Europe at the time. The descendants of those German brewers would create an entirely new style of beer known as American Pale Lager, which would become virtually the only style this country would produce for a very long time.

The names of a handful of those immigrant brewers are immortalized to this day on the bottles and cans of the products that represent the companies they founded. The names include Frederick Miller, Adolph Coor, Captain Fred Pabst, Joseph Schlitz, and Adolphus Busch. The fact that we still know those names and not the others, testifies to the fact that these men, all of whom came from humble backgrounds, were businessmen first, and brewers second. In each case, they bought their way into existing breweries, and ended up with success far beyond their wildest dreams.

Joseph Schlitz's brilliant marketing skills were helped along by tragedy, the Great Chicago Fire. Five local breweries were destroyed in the fire and almost as serious, the city's water system was contaminated. Relief came from Milwaukee in the form of hundreds of barrels of beer, courtesy of Herr Schlitz. That bit of altruism not only solidified the company's reputation around the country but also that of its hometown. In fact the slogan: "The beer that made Milwaukee famous" was inspired by Schlitz's act of generosity back in 1871. For his part, Schlitz gained a foothold in the lucrative Chicago market which enabled him to open up several saloons serving of course, exclusively Schlitz beer. You can see evidence of this today as the familiar logo of the Schlitz company, (the earth wrapped by a banner displaying the name of company), still graces the facades of many surviving buildings that once housed Schlitz owned saloons.

Beer plays an important part in Chicago's history. Back in 1855, the city fathers enacted a law banning the sale of alcohol on Sunday. Since it was the tradition of Germans to congregate in beer gardens on their one day of rest, the law was seen as an affront to that community. This resulted in the Lager Beer Riot on April 21st of that year. The ban was soon lifted. The labor movement that rocked the city in the 1870s and 80s was made up mostly of Germans and Bohemains, and the resentment towrd those folks and their drink of choice, fueled the fire of the temperance movement, as did the intense anti-German sentiment during WWI.

Well into the twentieth century, most beer was sold in saloons. If you wanted to enjoy your beer at home, you'd have to go to the local watering hole and fill up a vessel of one kind or other to bring home. Part of my family's lore is the story of how my great-grandfather Robert Houlihan became a teetotaler. One Sunday morning, Robert had a taste for a beer and asked his wife Margaret to head out to the tavern to fetch him some. Margaret wasn't in the mood for a Sunday morning jaunt to the neighborhood tap so she did what any sensible parent would do, she sent her child. Apparently, Robert's reaction to the sight of his favorite daughter Marie, my grandmother, returning from the saloon struggling to carry home a bucket of beer, sent him into a tizzy. Such was the disgust from the sight that from that day forward my great grandfather vowed, not to fetch the beer himself, but to give up drink. He would become an ardent and vocal supporter of temperance and Prohibition. Fortunately his beliefs did not rub off on most of his progeny.

The "noble experiment" of Prohibition sent a tidal wave of change throughout the land, little of it having to do with the expressed purpose of eliminating the evils of drink.

A good number of breweries had the wherewithal to survive the thirteen years of Prohibition, mostly by selling legal near beer, malt extract or yeast products. What the consumers did with those products was apparently their own business, so long as they didn't make beer, wink wink.

One unintended consequence was that Prohibition created a whole new market for beer. Old time saloons were primarily the domain of men, whereas the illegal speakeasies of Prohibition were filled with men, women and even children. When the repeal of the 18th amendment came in 1933, the breweries, anxious to recoup their losses, were eager to expand their market well beyond the traditional Central European, male core. The heavily malted, intensely hopped beverage that Bohemians and Germans preferred, was shall we say an acquired taste, not necessarily popular among this new group. So the brewers adapted their recipes to create a beer that was less intense, easier to drink, and had a greatly reduced mouth feel and aftertaste. They did this by adding more corn or rice, depending on the location of the brewery. This was the beginning of the aforementioned American Pale Lager, which became so dominant in the American market.

Many in the beer world call American Pale Lager an inferior product, but that's not really true. The lack of taste and distinction (at least compared to other styles), is certainly the chief characteristic of APL, but that's exactly the point. While making a boatload of money is certainly their goal as with any business, big brewers do not skimp on effort or the quality of their materials. In fact, the opposite is true for the most part. The breweries spend a great deal of money to procure ingredients of the highest quality and to maintain the highest standards of quality control in their facilities. A brewmaster's most important job at a commercial brewery, especially a big one, is not creativity or experimentation, but quality control, making sure his beer tastes exactly the same, one insipid sip after another. That's not an easy job in the notoriously fickle art of brewing.

When a brand of beer becomes inconsistent, trouble follows, as the makers of Schiltz found out not too long ago. Schlitz was the leading brewer in America for most of the twentieth century. In the 1970s, the company seeking to improve its profit margin, tried to cut corners by experimenting with new techniques that would shorten the aging process and enable them to use a higher percentage of corn, which is cheaper than barley. The change of recipe changed the product, and resulted in a beer than was inconsistent from batch to batch, causing loyal drinkers to switch brands in droves. In about ten years, the great Downtown Milwaukee brewery closed for good, and Schlitz was absorbed into the Pabst company. The Schlitz label exists today, still owned by the Pabst Company, and contract brewed by Miller, as a boutique brand, brewed using the old recipe. Better yes, but don't expect it to taste like Pilsner Urquell.

If innovation, creativity and experimentation are not a part of the brewmaster's job description, that is certainly not the case for the marketers of beer. Early beer ads testify to the beer companies' desire to convince non beer drinkers to drink beer. They typically describe the healthful attributes of beer as well as other benefits. The following is the copy of an ad from around 1900: *

There is no beverage more healthful than the right kind of beer. Barley malt and hops - a food and a tonic. Only 3 1/2 percent of alcohol - just right for digestion.


Rhine wine is 12 percent alcohol; champagne, 20 percent; whiskey, 40 percent.


There are no germs in pure beer, while the sweet drinks you give you children are full of them.


Pure beer is a tonic which all physicians favor. They prescribe it to the weak, the run-down, the convalescent. And they recommend it to well people who want to keep well.

Of course you have to drink the right beer:

But get the right beer, for some beer is not healthful. Schlitz is the pure beer, the clean beer, the filtered and sterilized beer. No bacilli in it - nothing but health.

And now for the coup de gras:

And Schlitz is the aged beer that never causes biliousness.

Of course not.

As the advertising world became more sophisticated, a product's image became the selling point for everything from soup to nuts. Beer was certainly no exception. For more or less the first two thirds of the twentieth century, beer ads typically made an effort to present the image of their product and its users as urbane and sophisticated, in marked contrast to the public image that beer was the drink of working class men. The Miller Company for example, famously advertised its signature product, Miller High Life as the "Champagne of Beers"

Here is a TV spot featuring the suave and debonair Ray Milland in character as private detective Roy Markham from around 1960. Note the non-discreet product placement during the closing credits of the program:


A few things happened to beer advertising in the sixties. TV commercials became more epic and cinematic. Gone were the days of on screen talent simply explaining the merits of a product as they did on radio. Imported beer started making real inroads in the American market and the bland, less expensive, American beers could no longer with a straight face claim to be more sophisticated than a beer from say Holland or Germany. So American beer companies reacted by turning to their old reliable consumers as you can see in this ad from 1971:

This commercial was made in the era when the slogans; "Miller Time" and "For all you do, this Bud's for you" were introduced. Their message was; after a hard day at work, sit back, relax, and pour yourself a cold one, you deserve it. The aggressive, over-the-top manly, men doing über-manly things campaign of Schlitz didn't go over as well as its creators had hoped, maybe because viewers found it hard to relate to say, tuna fishermen. But it was part of the trend that continues to this day to market American beer primarily to the working man.

In the seventies and the eighties, the marketers and brewmasters got together to create an entirely new style of brew, light beer. Influenced by the diet soft drink, light beer was probably intended to be marketed toward beer drinking women who wanted to watch their waste lines. The Chicago brand Meister Braü was the first to market the stuff but went nowhere with it. The Meister Braü label was purchased by Miller, who was at the time owned by cigarette giant Phillip Morris Company. "Meister Braü Lite" became "Lite Beer from Miller", and the target audience was changed to thirsty men. The new angle was that you could drink a whole lot of this stuff and get drunk (ok not in so many words), but not get bloated. They also claimed it tasted good which I guess is a matter of opinion. Miller produced several commercials showing some of the manliest of men, mostly sports stars who wouldn't be caught dead drinking diet beer, but were happy to drink two cans of beer that had the same effect of one normal beer. It was brilliant. Not only did the beer companies have a successful new product on their hands, but they could sell twice as much of it. Every major brand jumped on the light beer bandwagon and today about 45 percent of all the malt beverages sold in the U.S. is "Lite" beer of one brand or another.

At the same time, another revolution was taking place in the beer world. No one agrees exactly how or where it all began, but the micro/craft brewing movement brought a whole new world of beer to this country. The author and renowned beer authority Michael Jackson, categorized beers from around the world and identified dozens of different styles in his groundbreaking book; The World Guide to Beer, first published in 1977. Another author, Fred Eckhardt, elaborated on the various styles is his book; The Essentials of Beer Style. Small, independent breweries and brew pubs began creating brews in every conceivable style. In the meantime, home brewing became legal for the first time in the United States since Prohibition, and all over the country people read Charlie Papazian's book, The Complete Joy of Home Brewing, and learned how to make their own Oatmeal Stout, English Bitters, Belgian Ales, India Pale Ales, German Kölsches, Weißbiers and Bocks, barley wines, heck even American lagers if they chose to do so. The end result was that in America, people who never knew they liked beer because all they ever drank was the tasteless product of Big Beer, became connoisseurs. It was a great awakening. New breweries sprung up all over the States after a steady decline for decades. Today there are almost 1,800 breweries in this country, and all but about 100 of them are either micro-breweries or brewpubs.

Big Beer of course is taking notice, not that craft breweries are really a threat to them. Boston Brewing Company, the largest craft brewery in the United States, shipped 2,259,000 barrels of beer in 2010 and ranked as the eighth top brewing company in the country according to Newsweek Magazine. That's a lot of beer. But its market share is 1.1% compared to 47.9% for Anheuser-Busch InBev, and 28.9% for MillerCoors. Boston's market share is even less than one half that of Pabst Company which doesn't even brew its own beer. Still those numbers would put the Boston Brewing Company in the ranks of Big Beer, even though there is world of difference between its flagship product, Sam Adams Boston Lager, and your standard American Lager from those other companies.

This year it was announced that Chicago's own Goose Island Brewery was to become part of the Anheuser-Busch InBev portfolio. In other words (to mix a couple metaphors), they went over to the Dark Side by selling out to the Evil Empire. Of course no one has a clue how this will all play out over the next several years, but it's unlikely that the giant multi-national corporation is interested in the brewery simply to destroy it. Here is some evidence to that effect. I seriously doubt if Goose Island will be cranking out Bud and Bud Lite anytime soon.

The craft beer movement has separated beer drinkers into people who either drink beer because of the taste, or because of the label. Big Beer is still the big player in the industry and far more people drink their product than any other beer. I'll admit that there are lots of folks out there who drink American Pale Lager simply because they like the taste of it better than anything else. But I'm willing to bet that far more people drink Big Beer more because of the label.

Again, there's that ever fascinating subject, marketing, and its ability to elevate one product over another even though there is absolutely no difference between the two. Take Pabst Blue Ribbon, an old time brew that was once best known as the beer preferred by red necks. PBR has recently gained a new life as the hip beer of the indie rock set. How that happened was a combination of dumb luck and shear brilliance. In the mid-eighties, Pabst was a near moribund company whose future was in the hands of a hostile takeover. The new owner concentrated on selling all the real estate holdings of the company and all but eliminating the advertising budget. The label became essentially invisible for a decade, until young, anti-establishment types, "re-discovered" it as a cheaper alternative to the familiar, more "commercial" brands like Miller and Bud that their fathers were drinking. Without any effort at all from the company, Pabst became big again, and while keeping away from main stream advertising, the new owners, the Metropoulos family have nudged the brand along by sponsoring alternative events such as concerts at indie rock venues, bike messenger contests and artists who work on Pabst related projects.

In the meantime, the good folks at Miller, in a sense bucking the trend themselves, began to emphasize their "macro-beer" image, featuring the High Life brand that we hadn't heard from for a while, though it never went away. A recent ad campaign has featured a likable Miller High Life deliveryman who actually takes his beer away from people whom he deems pretentious and therefore unworthy of "living the high life." This is a message obviously directed at the "everyman" but in a way has made MHL hipper than hip as a counter-counter culture product. In other words, drinkers of MHL reject the faux coolness of PBR and view its drinkers as poseurs. They drink what is in their opinion, a more honest, therefore hipper product.

The irony of all this is that Pabst Blue Ribbon is contract brewed by Miller. While the two are brewed using slightly different recipes, they are both made in the same brewery and are essentially the same beer. I'm guessing that if the workers at the Miller bottling plant accidentally switched the labels on a batch of PBR and a batch of MHL, nobody would notice.

These are pretty good times for beer lovers in America. For those of us who love beer for the taste, never before has there been more selection of styles of beer available to drink fresh, at a local brewpub, or to pick up at a retail establishment, even the local supermarket. For those drawn to the label, many of the old, forgotten brands will be coming back as a sort of niche for drinkers interested in nostalgia. Of course they'll all be brewed up at Miller's, but what's the difference, label lovers only care about the label after all.

For those folks who feel bilious about big business, there are still independent brewers out there without any corporate affiliation, you're job is to find them.

And if the idea of anyone at all profiting off of the making of beer sends you into a tizzy, you can always brew your own.

It is after all a free country. Let's drink to that, while we still can.



* reprinted from an advertisement for Schlitz Beer, c. 1900 as found in:
Breweries of Wisconsin, Jerry Apps, University of Wisconsin Press, 1992