I never heard of now-Speaker of the House Mike Johnson until only recently. But I did look him up, to note that he was not elected to Congress until 2017, and was a member of the Christian right, which you sure could have fooled me from the Mike Johnson I’ve seen the past few months in various news stories.
Now there’s MTG on the other hand, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and she gives people the notion of a gal who goes bear huntin’ with a switch, which sadly has earned her a lot of public demerits, being the sort of country girl Democrats of the Left, especially those of her same age group love to mock.
Still, she has all of Nature’s input that men and women alike seem to emulate.
But it’s Mike Johnson’s position that we need to pay attention to, for despite his 7 years of moving from a Louisiana district to the top spot in the House of Represenatives,without any real show of leadership, what we’re seeing is a tell-tale sign that moderate-to-liberal Republicans were as comfortable with him as Democrats were with Hastert, Boehner, Ryan and McCarthy. Only Democrat Speakers are allowed exude strength and power, MTG would never be allowed with a hundred miles of that position because House Republicans had largely been emasculated when it came to leadership. The GOP now has quite a few, GOP House Leaders had to have a reputation ir bending over and grabbing the ankles.
Which brings me to Johnny Cash, who I listened to through high school and into college. And I came across Johnny’s 1964 album, “Bitter Tears” of several songs about the mistreatment of “Indians”, a term I still use. When I left the Army in ’76, I stayed on in Arizona for 2-3 years, practicing law, working with the Yavapai Apache. I also spent time with the Dakota people, and even Nez Perce in Idaho.
I recommend this cut from his “Bitter Tears” album, “As long as the Grass Shall Grow” about the backstabbing Washington bureaucrats and the Corps of Engineers had given the Seneca in the 1950s, essentially disregarding the promise George Washington had made to them. I joined that movement, sent a few bucks and kept up with the screwing they were getting from Washington. (You’ll like he other songs as well.)
Read: Kinzua Dam political problems https://www.alleghenyfront.org/the-complicated-history-of-the-kinzua-dam-and-how-it-changed-life-for-the-seneca-people/
But Johnny Cash tells that story best. And I’ll bet you never heard this song or knew that story, or how its major thesis resonanted through the years, a contract today means nothing in a few generations. But it tells you how easy Mike Johnson is to manipulate.
Johnny Cash said that truth one way 60 years ago, while only older people today can see the connection.
I don’t have a solution, but the symptoms of the disease that Cash sang about in 1964, are the same today.
