Hitler Certainly Did NOT "Take All The Guns Away"

I’ve had it.  I mean, really had it.  There is no longer any denying the fact that this “first thing Hitler did was take away the guns” meme is a deliberate lie being spread by a certain group of people.

Hitler took the guns away from Jews.  No one else.  The Jews.

This is a historic fact, easily proven, which seems to have no effect on the liars who continue to deliberately spread the untruth.

I don’t give two hoots in hell about gun control.  I’m sorry, I don’t.  It’s all just a bunch of political talk, and our do-nothing Congress has sat on its butt on the gun control issue just like it has on every other issue.  

Yes, I own guns.  No, I don’t think the government is going to make a list (via registration) and come after my guns.  For what it’s worth, “the government” – counting the military and law enforcement personnel (federal agents, cops, sheriff’s deputies, everybody) owns about FOUR MILLION guns.

If it comes down to a gunfight, “the government” is screwed.  Private citizens in this nation own THREE HUNDRED MILLION guns.

Not that ANYBODY in “the government” is talking about taking away anyone’s guns.  You really need to get a mental health exam if your paranoia is so deep that you think Barack Obama’s Secret Muslim Army is coming to get your guns.

Back to the Hitler lie, which – even though they’ve been called on it time and again – people like Mike Huckabee and Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity continue to repeat day after day.  Here’s the thing. When Hitler grabbed power in Germany, the average household was armed to the teeth with rifles, handguns, and all manner of firearms.  World War 1 was still very much in the recent past, and Germans had PLENTY of guns.

It was far from “the first thing that he did”, but Adolf Hitler DID take guns away from the Jews.  No one else; just the Jews.  And we know what followed.

And those of you who know me well enough know why “what followed” is still a very personal thing.

I know this rant won’t change anything.  But if one more person repeats the “first thing Hitler did was take away the guns” thing within my hearing, I’m going to educate them with a very loud voice.

More Radio Success For John And Tammy

For years, my friends John Flint and Tammy Lee had the top-rated country radio morning show in Madison on Q-106.  I was a very small part of their show, delivering brief news/sports/weather updates twice an hour on their show, and often participating in their great little features like “Spy The Lie”.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if there are two harder working people in radio, I’ve never met them.

John and Tammy’s hard work made Q-106 a dominant radio station in the Madison market, frequently topping the ratings.  Then, about 8 years ago, when it came time for their annual salary review, the brain trust at MidWest Family Broadcasting made the biggest blunder in Madison radio history, a seven-figure mistake that had every professional broadcaster who heard about it shaking their head in disbelief.

More on that, later.

John and Tammy took their show across town to Star County, and proceeded to take that station’s morning show on a rocket-ride up in the ratings, bringing with them a lot of their Q-106 listeners and sponsors.  Star County promptly kicked Q-106’s butt.

Then, a couple years ago, as many of us knew it would, the BIG-TIME came calling for John and Tammy. KSON-FM in San Diego was looking for a new morning show, and made John and Tammy the proverbial offer you can’t refuse.  Big-time radio, MAJOR market – so Tammy and her husband Kurt and John and his wife Stephanie invited their radio pals to a going-away party, and we sent them off to the big city in style.

Just a few days ago, I learned that John and Tammy had taken KSON to the highest ratings in the station’s history.  I didn’t hear about it from them, because they don’t brag about such things, even when it’s a milestone accomplishment.  I read about it in one of the industry’s leading publications, Inside Radio.  Radio ratings company Arbitron, the industry standard, says KSON has been the number-one station in the San Diego market month after month, and this latest month’s rating shows KSON is absolutely dominating the market.

No real surprise.  John and Tammy are that good.  Their success comes naturally, the old-fashioned way.  They work their butts off.  And they are two VERY talented people.

Now, the “inside baseball” stuff.  The dirt.

If you think only a fool would allow those two talented people to take their number-one country radio morning show to the competitor over a few thousand bucks – with literally millions of advertising dollars riding on the decision -  you’d be right.  The person at MidWest who thought John and Tammy were “overpaid as it is” and let them walk had never programmed a radio station.  Had never been in a position which required evaluation of on-air talent.  Had never even done a radio show in any format.  Never wrote or delivered a radio newscast.  Had never written, produced, or sold an ad to a sponsor, nor supervised anyone who had. 

And then, after the fatal blunder was made, walked around the hallways at MidWest showing copies of John and Tammy’s W-2’s, telling anyone who would listen that John and Tammy were greedy a-holes.

Classy.

And who was running the show over there?  Who was the big dog? Who let this flawed decision happen?  A person with the same qualifications to make on-air personnel judgment as the person who made the blunder.  Zero on-air experience, zero news experience, zero experience in ever trying to sell an ad to a client.

How do such bean-counters get into positions of ultimate authority? 

Take a look at what’s happened to the radio broadcasting industry over the past decade, and you’ll have a strong clue.

As for my friends John and Tammy – the old proverb is true: living well is the best revenge.  Congrats, you two!

They Are Not All Heroes

Not everyone who put on a uniform and served their country is a hero.  In fact, I believe only a very small percentage of those who served – and are serving – are truly heroes, deserving of our admiration, and our sincere thanks.  The rest are, well, they’re veterans, and as such, deserve our thanks and respect for volunteering to serve their nation.

But calling everyone who puts on a uniform a hero cheapens the word, and it just plain isn’t true.

Bill McClellan, a columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, stirred up a hornet’s nest when he suggested a few days ago that one of the areas in which government spending could be cut would be to stop holding funerals with full military honors for every veteran whose family requests it.  In Missouri, they had about 800 such funerals last year, and each one cost about 400 bucks.

Hate mail, death threats, social media campaigns against him; in short, the kind of stuff columnists usually thrive on.

Before you hate me even more, let me point out I’m the son of a highly-decorated World War 2 Combat Infantry veteran, who was Commander of his American Legion post for decades.  Dad saw plenty of action on the front lines in the European Theater of Operations in the Big War, and of all his ribbons, awards, and citations, he said “I didn’t do anything that an awful lot of other guys did, too”.  And Dad was buried with full military honors, laid to rest by a squadron of riflemen from his American Legion Post (Hammond-Schmidt Post 55).  And those guys, veterans of WW2, Korea, and Viet Nam, gave dad his final sendoff and wouldn’t take a penny.

As I gaze up from my desk, on the high shelf above me, are two .30-06 shells: one from the 21-gun salute fired at my dad’s funeral, and one from the salute fired at Toni’s dad’s funeral.  They remind me not only of Bill and Mario and my other family members who fired and were fired at by the enemy; they remind me of all my friends who were drafted and went to war in Viet Nam.

One of my boyhood pals, Tommy Armitage, was drafted into the Marines, back in the Viet Nam era when Uncle Sam lined up the draftees and went “one-two-three-you’re a Marine, one-two-three-you’re a Marine”.  A few months after Tommy was deployed to Viet Nam, on February 12^th of 1969 in Quang Tri Province, he threw himself on a grenade and died saving the lives of four of his fellow Marines.

Tommy was a hero.

But, as McClellan pointed out, not everyone who served is a hero.  Plenty of guys spent their hitch sorting mail, making meals, wrenching on equipment, and doing the myriad other tasks that are necessary in the armed services.  And plenty of young men freely admit they did their time in the armed services because a juvenile judge said “join the Army or go to jail”.

Is everyone who served in the armed forces a hero?  No.

Does everyone who served in the armed forces deserve a funeral with full military honors?  Maybe.

But for those who served in actual combat units, our nation owes them a hell of a lot more than a military send-off with a 21-gun salute and a folded flag handed to the family.

Boss Bruer Deposed!

Tim Bruer, who has been the south-side (District 14) Alder seemingly since John Nolen drew up plans for the city, was knocked out of his city council seat by a decisive 59-41 margin in balloting yesterday.  John Stasser’s win is the end of a long era – 29 years – in Madison politics.  Stasser told the Cap Times he felt Bruer was tired, didn’t campaign aggressively (Bruer only started to actively campaign a few days ago when it appeared he was in trouble), and was done in because he’d become disconnected from his constituents.

Years ago, in my long-time stint as a local news anchor, I referred to him exclusively as “Boss Bruer”. From 1989 until 1996 I lived in his district, in Burr Oaks.  And for many, many years, Tim Bruer was a Boss in the old Chicago style: he knew his constituents, fought battles for them, stood up for the south side, wielded power – a decade ago he chaired the extremely powerful Alcohol License Review Committee – and passed out favors to those who stood with him.

Bruer was a massive presence on the south side.  When troubles at the old Sommerset Circle housing development (now known as Parker Place) came to a boil, and five kids died in a horrible fire there in March of 1990, Bruer fought for and got better living conditions for the people packed into that former hell-hole.

He railed against city hall for constantly trying to make the Park Street corridor and the south side in general a “dumping ground” for low-income housing and half-way houses, and won more battles than he lost.  He got out into the streets and marched with south-siders.  In his day-job, he made sure that people who were cold got help in heating their homes.  He was instrumental in getting a new police station built a few hundred feet from Park Street and Badger Road. 

Shortly after he was elected, he was the force behind getting the old fire station that served the south side…an old building at Park and Fish Hatchery….replaced with a brand new building (Fire Station 6 on Badger Road just west of Park Street), housing an engine company and a paramedic unit, staffed by six full-time Madison firefighters.

When I moved from Middleton (two doors down from Russ Feingold and his famous garage door) to Madison in 1989, one of the very first visitors was Boss Bruer.  He knocked on the door and introduced himself – I said “I know who you are” and he said “I know who you are, too – I hear you on the radio every morning” – welcomed me to the neighborhood, gave me his card, and said “call me any time, and I mean that”.  And I did, often, either to interview him for a news story, or as a constituent.  He returned my calls promptly- every time – and never dodged a hard question.

He could give long-winded speeches at city council meetings, but his passion was never fake.  He knew the issues, he knew the people, he knew his politics. 

If indeed Boss Bruer did get tired, who could blame him?  Three decades of running into brick wall after brick wall….and knocking most of them down….can do that to you.

Stasser says he beat Bruer on the issue of the massive renovation proposed for the huge Nob Hill apartment complex on Moorland Road.  Bruer didn’t like the plan; Stasser says the people wanted the construction jobs the project would create; and that may well have been the Boss’s undoing.

Take a rest, Boss Bruer.  You’ve more than earned it.

And thank you.

A Man of Action

Perhaps you have not yet heard about Matthew Bent.  He’s the father of boy who’s been bullied for over a year now, and he’s gotten the runaround from the Kaukauna School District, the cops, everybody.  The picture above, from Matt’s Facebook page, tells part of the story.

Everybody has an excuse for not doing something about the bully that’s been hounding Matt’s son. The school administrator Matt was told to call wouldn’t even take his call – until Matt’s story went viral and everybody in the Fox Valley knew about it.  The cops told Matt it’s up to the school police officer to deal with it.  The school police officer first told Matt it was his son’s own fault, for going into an area of the school where the bully was known to hang out.  When Matt asked the school cop about a certain piece of jewelry Matt gave his son after a successful Little League season, a piece of jewelry the bully stole from the boy, the cop said the bully denied stealing it and said that piece of jewelry was available at such-and-such a store.  That was a “good enough excuse” for him.

Meanwhile, Matt’s story continues to explode on the internet, garnering support and encouragement from parents of kids who’ve been bullied and adults who were bullied as kids.

As hard as it must be, Matt is doing the right thing.  He’s “going through the appropriate channels”. And I hope eventually, sooner rather than later, the people who comprise “the appropriate channels” will do the right thing by Matt’s son.  Matt could easily have gone the vigilante route, taken justice into his own hands, and meted out the sort of retribution that ends the bullying in short order, but often begins a serious involvement with the law enforcement system.

I have little faith in the “appropriate channels”, because they’ve failed us so many times. Too often they turn a blind eye to the problem, hoping it will go away; too often when confronted with it, they weasel out using mealy-mouthed excuses about “policy” and “established procedure” – the kind of politically-correct group-think that brought us asinine crap like “zero tolerance” and has us taking off our shoes at airports.

And a certain small percentage of those who were bullied explode in a rage that makes headlines all over the world.

I hope Matt can hold on long enough for the wave of common sense that’s building in the form of a viral media storm to force the foot-draggers to do their job, and directly and effectively address the bullying.

If it seems from my tone like I have personal feelings about this, you’re right.  I’m the tall, scrawny, uncoordinated geek who wore glasses and liked science and wasn’t “cool” and got picked on, and then a few short years later was the six-foot-three 225-pound man-child who meted out vengeful justice in spades.  And learned the truth that bullies are cowards.  And then made a promise to himself to intervene any time anyone was being bullied.

Hang in there, Matt.  Help is on the way – in one form or another.

Fear and Loathing in TV-Land

I peered up from the book I was reading yesterday and saw Wayne LaPierre’s face on the tube, and angrily grabbed the remote and shut TV off.  Having worked in a broadcast newsroom for nearly all my adult life, I always have CNN on in the background, very low volume, just as newsrooms always have the police scanner volume up 24/7.  News can break at any time. 

Scanner traffic and all-news 24/7 cable channels become part of your environment in this biz.
 

I thought about my initial reaction of anger at seeing LaPierre on the tube.  I am as tired of his “more-guns-more-guns-more-guns” rants as I am of the media constantly plastering his face on TV and broadcasting his rants.  The man is on every network every day!

A few hours later, on the local TV nooz, a reporterette was interviewing some local law enforcement guy who was saying they’re concerned about a possible shortage of bullets, and how they might have to cut back on their training activities if they can’t get enough bullets.

Then it clicked for me.

LaPierre is a genius.  An evil genius to be sure, but a genius nonetheless.  He has kept the cycle of fear and paranoia alive since December 14^th last year – well over three months since the mass murders at Sandy Hook.  Whatever the gun and ammo manufacturers are paying him can’t possibly be enough.

He has, pretty much singlehandedly, created the biggest business boom in history for gun and ammo manufacturers, and the boom is showing no signs of slowing down. He has engendered a bull market in the firearms industry the likes of which has never been seen, and every nooz story that airs telling of possible bullet shortages and empty shelves and racks at the gun store drives the boom another notch higher.

Every time LaPierre opens his mouth some TV camera records it.  This is a fairly recent phenomenon in the nooz biz, this rush to “balance” every gun-control advocate (or, name any issue or cause under the sun) with someone who has a different viewpoint.  Every time somebody like Joe Biden says “gun control”, something from Wayne LaPierre must be run alongside it to “balance” the story.

And please, don’t get me started on the concept of “false equivalency”.

But, you know what?  Of all the gun groups out there (and there are more than you might think) Wayne LaPierre is the least extreme national spokesman! Spend a few moments reading the stuff that Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America has put out, and you’ll come away thinking LaPierre is a moderate.

By whipping up the fear that Barack Obama’s Secret Muslim Army is going to come in black helicopters to take your guns away, LaPierre gins up more and more business for the gun and ammo dealers. By constantly repeating his message of fear to “balance” their gun control stories, the media helps spread LaPierre’s paranoia.

Shortage of bullets?  “The Government” is buying up all of them so you can’t get them. Just ask LaPierre or any one of hundreds of right-wing bloggers.

Shortage of assault weapons?  Manufacturers can’t crank them out fast enough to meet the demand of those who STILL don’t own one, but know in their heart of hearts that if they don’t get one now, THE GOVERNMENT will soon shut down production and then they’ll have to pay an arm and a leg to get one on the black market.

Hitler’s first move was to disarm the populace?  The gun guys love saying that, but it’s complete BS.  The only people Hitler took guns from were the Jews. The average German household under Hitler was awash in firearms, many of them brought home after World War One.

The combination of crackpots like LaPierre, the media echo chamber, and native stupidity combined with ignorance of history and topped off by an inept congress have made gun and ammo manufacturers modern-day robber barons.

Yes, I own firearms. Yes, I’ve gone deer hunting with a high-powered rifle. 

No, I don’t have an AR-15 and no, I don’t own any high-capacity clips.

I don’t need them, nor do you.

No, Senator Johnson, You’re Not Entitled to Your Own “Facts”

Two items I read over the weekend prompted me to write this rant: the first was a piece about how people really aren’t “entitled to their own opinion”, if that opinion is counter to scientific, demonstrable fact; the second was a transcription of Senator Ron Johnson’s joust with Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman on one of the Sunday morning TV talk shows.

Perhaps the cliché should be changed to “everyone is entitled to their own delusion”, in the case of people who think the Earth is three thousand years old, that mercury in vaccinations causes autism, and any of a number of things – Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin seem to have an endless supply of them – that are counter to demonstrable fact.

And Senator Johnson really shouldn’t try to blow smoke past a Nobel Laureate in his particular field of expertise.  Here’s the gist: Senator Johnson made the claim that the Social Security Trust Fund is a myth.  Why he would say such a stupid thing is beyond me, when it’s obviously not true; but, be that as it may, this came up during a discussion of Social Security on a TV talk show.  When Senator Johnson uttered that nonsensical claim, Paul Krugman said “You said ‘let’s start with the facts’, but we’ve just run aground right there”.  To which Johnson said “Exactly my point – we have got to agree on facts and figures”.  Krugman responded “But your facts are false. Social Security has a dedicated revenue base, it has a trust fund based on that dedicated revenue base…it’s important to realize that the ‘facts’ being brought out here are in fact non-facts.”

Paul Krugman has his own opinions on economic matters, opinions which may or may not be “true”, such as his belief that paying down the nation’s debt is not as important right now as growing the economy, and that we can accomplish some of each at the same time.  That’s an opinion, not a fact. But at least it’s an informed opinion.

Senator Johnson’s assertion that the Social Security Trust Fund is a myth is simply not true.  Social Security is funded by two things: payroll deductions from the earnings of working people, and income from investments in government securities which the Social Security Trust Fund makes.

Senator Johnson is either ignorant of that basic FACT, or – he would like us to believe that somehow “the government” funds Social Securty – a basic UN-FACT.  That sort of assertion, false as it is, falls right in line with similar untrue statements from Johnson about how Social Security payments "add to the deficit".

 

You and I fund Social Security, and I probably fund a lot more of it than the average person, because I’m self-employed so I personally pay “both sides” of the FICA tax on my income - my portion, and the "employer's" portion.

Senator Johnson is entitled to his opinion that government is too large, too intrusive, and spends too much money.

But Senator Johnson is not entitled to state “facts” which are so untrue as to be absurd.  He does so at the peril of being perceived as a clown rather than a politician.