Posted on 01/16/2002 6:27:33 AM PST by Clemenza
January 16, 2002 -- ‘We're taking down the old white guys," said Marty Markowitz, Brooklyn's new beep, as he ordered a portrait of George Washington removed from his Borough Hall office.
The old white guys.
The old slave-owners, is what Markowitz means - though he lacks the courage to say so out loud.
So, 225 years after George Washington and his Continentals deftly evaded a vastly superior British army assembled on Brooklyn Heights - merely making the United States of America possible - this lightweight former backbencher from the state Senate banishes the old patriot once again.
The British were fighting a war.
What's Marty Markowitz's excuse?
He has none.
A reason, yes. It's to achieve some "diversity" in the hall.
But an excuse?
Not at all.
It's not hard to find an argument about which among America's founders was the greatest: They were thinkers; they were do-ers; they were individuals of vision and principle and integrity. They vested their lives and fortunes in the uniquely Western notion that the rule of law was superior to the rule of mere men.
Two-and-one-quarter centuries later, America - with all its faults and failures - vindicates their struggle.
George Washington likely was the greatest of them all.
First in war, first in peace and - yes - first in the hearts of his countrymen.
And that was the least of it.
For George Washington tasted power - first as general of the Continental Army, and then as the fledgling nation's first chief executive.
And he voluntarily gave it up - pre- cisely so that America would indeed become a nation of laws, and not men.
He could have had a third term for the asking; he did not ask.
And before that, in December of 1783, he could have taken permanent command of America simply by abetting an incipient revolt of recently demobilized Continental Army officers.
Unpaid for months, angry and without work or prospects, they proposed to take Congress hostage. By force of arms, they would achieve redress of their grievances.
In a barn in upstate Newburgh, Washington rose to address his officers.
No stemwinder, this speech.
Reaching for his spectacles, he paused and apologized:
"Gentlemen," he said, "you must forgive me. I have gone gray in your service, and now I find myself going blind."
And the revolt was over.
Never again need America fear its military.
Contrast that with the butchers and boodlers and bagmen who lead - if that's the correct term - the kleptocracies so admired by so many of those who will defend Markowitz this morning.
To hell with them.
An "old white guy"?
For shame, Marty Markowitz.
Wish the same could be said of the "ethnic" Poles in Buffalo, who voted for the Hildebeast. Then again, her opponent WAS Rick Lazio who barely campaigned in their neighborhoods!
And I've heard the younger Jews are starting to break from their parents and grandparents on their votes as well which is good to hear.
Based upon AJC data and conversations with friends, this is particularly true of Jewish men under 40. The problem comes in places like Florida, where the Jewish vote is typically over 65! Nevertheless, still good news. :-)
Absolutely. In Henry Miller's first novel, Black Spring, the German-American central character (Henry Miller himself), discusses how he and his parents fled from Williamsburgh to Bushwick to get away from the "filthy" Jews and Italians who came with the Williamsburgh Bridge.
Amen.
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