Humor has come a long way in America. It still has lots further to
go. But when I think back to some of the most God Awful portrayals of
Blacks, Latinos, Chinese, Japanese, Jews, Irish, Polish, and the list
goes on.
Even middle class white fathers and mothers were satirized and made fun of.
However it was Put down humor, the prevalent basis for humor, which
was hardest on the disenfranchised people. Does anyone remember when
Laurence Welk hired a Black Vibe player who also dressed in a tux and
did a tap routine while shucking and jiving around the stage giving
his big toothy grin? I don't recall his name, but he was the Stoop
'N' Fetchit of his day. Such blatant discrimination seldom appears
today, discounting Donald Trump, of course.
So I listened to Garrison Keillor over the years, starting back
somewhere around 1977. And I overlooked his mostly white cast. And
at the same time I came down with both feet on Mister Rogers for his
White, Middle Class values.
It's hard to know what turns each of us on. But whatever it is, enjoy
life the best you can, and do what you can to make it a better world.
But don't worry too much about whether watching or listening to a
particular program is going to make any difference at all.
Carl Jarvis
On 7/5/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
My intro to this piece is that I did feel sad that Ssaturday was the last
time I'd be hearing Garrison Keillor on Prarie Home Companion. It's just
one
more thing in my life that's ending. However, I'd begun to feel somewhat
cynical about Garrison; about his glorification of patriotism and America,
about his, until recently, frequent salutes to our military, to his
ignoring
of the poor people of color who were the majority populations in cities
from
which he broadcast such as Detroit and Newart, to his ignoring of Muslim
performers on his show. I kept telling myself that he was an entertainer,
not a political figure. But that wasn't accurate because he did deal with
politics on the show and he did subtly, and sometimes, not so subtly, make
his opinions known.
Miriam
Garrison Keillor's Prophecy and Apostasy
On what was billed as his last show, Garrison Keillor, host of "A Prairie
Home Companion" got a call from President Barack Obama and they traded
extensive compliments, with Keillor telling Obama he was "the coolest
president."
Keillor's signing off on July 4 weekend was likely calculated to accentuate
his presumed ties to all things Americana, but for me it actually
highlighted his hypocrisies and contradictions.
For one, my favorite story of his was set on the Fourth. I'd long thought
that any reasonable person who hears that story would concur it was his
greatest. Unfortunately when I asked him about it last year, Keillor
himself
clearly wouldn't fit into that category.
The story -- which he told shortly after the 1991 bombing of Iraq -- was
simply titled "Prophet." When I heard it at the time, it gave me a sense
that there was a silver of hope in turning the U.S. public around regarding
the country's place in the world. My girlfriend back then gave me the
cassette tape collection that included the story as a birthday present.
Until lawyers expunge it from the internet, you can listen to that story on
here. I've excerpted the heart of it below.
I tolerated Keillor's unevenness for years after that, listening on and
off.
I had an unsatisfying run in with him in 1999, but I'd overlooked that and
his various annoying proclivities, especially his seeming incessant
avoidance of the moral sins that created the U.S. -- because he told the
"Prophet" story. But you never really know someone until you have a chance
to ask them a couple of questions, as I did when he spoke at the National
Press Club last year.
He began his talk at the Press Club by bemoaning that people rarely
addressed particular things he'd written. They'd just say "good job" -- as
you "would say to a child who had had a bowel movement. ... As I look back
on my career in broadcasting, nobody had ever complemented me on a specific
thing. Nobody had ever quoted back to me some brilliant thing I had ever
said. It was always general. 'We like your show.' 'It really relaxes our
children.' 'We listen to it late at night.' And it occurred to me that
perhaps I had spent 40 years in radio as a sort of comforting baritone
presence and that nobody heard anything in particular that I had said."
I felt so good, because I had submitted a question about the "Prophet"
story
which he told decades earlier. Surely he'd be floored that someone
remembers
that story. Perhaps seeing that that's what resonated with people he would
be compelled to use his pulpit to do more of that caliber of commentary.
The moderator of the event, then Press Club President John Hughes did ask
that question: "One of your greatest stories on 'A Prairie Home Companion'
was the 'Prophet' which you told during the 1991 Gulf War. What would a
prophet tell us now?"
But Keillor basically renounced the story: "I am not in the prophecy
business and sort of regret that monologue. I've been trying to forget it
for years and years. It was one of my ill-advised ventures into political
commentary. I had almost erased it from my mind, John. You brought back a
little tiny bit of it. That's p-r-o-p-h-e-t? I have no idea -- I have been
around and seen a lot of young people in the last month ..."
He yada-yada-ed for a bit about passing the mantle, but the point was made.
[See video.]
Here's the most substantial chunks of the "Prophet" story:
I recall when I was a little boy, going to the volunteer fire department
Fourth of July picnic. My family doesn't remember this at all, but they
have
very poor memories. ... I got the beans on my plate and I had the bun and I
had just put the wiener in the bun and I was just squeezing the ketchup and
the air turned white and it was snowing. Snow was falling and everybody was
amazed and then somebody said, "oh no", they said, "It's fluff from the
cottonwood trees, it's just seeds coming down from the cottonwood trees",
and so, that was that, but then I looked down at my plate and there was
nothing there. Now cottonwood fluff does not melt. Seeds don't just
disappear. It was snow on the Fourth of July. A snow flurry hit Lake
Wobegon
on the Fourth of July when I was a boy, but if you talk to anybody,
including my family who was at the Volunteer Fire Department Bean Feed that
day in 1951 on the Fourth of July, they will tell you that was fluff from
the cottonwood trees that came down. I was the only one who knew the truth.
A terrible responsibility for a child and one more reason to leave town,
you
know. There were too many things that I was the only one that knew them...
Stunning thought, but when God sends snow down on the Fourth of July, that
indicates to me that he is talking to us in a loud voice and apparently I
was the only one who saw this and therefore, the only one who might have a
hunch what God was trying to tell us, but I turned down the privilege,
thank
you very much, no thank you. To be a prophet was too much for me then and
it's too much for me now. To be a prophet is hard work anytime and
anyplace,
but you never want to do it in a town of less than 2,000 population. If you
live there and if you come from there. To stand and to tell people the
truth
that they have been successfully avoiding is not a pleasant business in a
small town.
Back in 1918 in my town, back when the streets were lined with flags and
when school children sat for hours of deadly nonsense about glory and honor
and this war was a war to end all wars, this war would usher in a New World
Order. Sat and listened to this there was a man on a bench outside a
grocery
store and turned to the man next to him and said, "I wish they'd take the
flags down, I don't think there's any glory in this war, it's just a bunch
of politicians." And the word got around town of this man's remarks, this
slur on our country ... and people would not speak to him again for a long
time...
You have become a scourge. You have become a prophet and it's time to time
to hit the road Jack. You gotta get out of this town. Well, that never
happened to me and I'm not ever going to have it happen to me. That's what
God was offering me when he had the snow fall on the Fourth of July and I
saw it. He was saying, "Witness to people about this. Reveal the truth of
this and be a prophet." I said, "No thank you, I don't want it." He said,
"This will be a great service to people whom you love, to tell them the
truth". I said, "Well they're not going to thank me for it. I know that for
sure. People hurt prophets. They throw sharp things at them. They rip the
clothes off them and they make them sit for long periods of time in
uncomfortable positions on top of sharp objects that are extremely
flammable. That's what they do to prophets. I don't want that. I don't want
any pain whatsoever. I don't ever want to experience any pain. Minor
dentistry is more than enough for me. So, no thank you. I don't want to be
a
prophet and tell the truth. What can I do that's the opposite of that?" And
so, I got into this line of work. Telling lies and I've never regretted it,
which is a terrible thing to say in front of children. To say that you've
spent your life telling lies, but I have and I've had a wonderful time, and
I have been very well rewarded for this, and I have been congratulated by
all sorts of people including members of the clergy, whereas if I had been
prophet and told the truth, I would be broke and I would be unhappy myself
and I would be despised and I would be condemned from most pulpits in the
country. No thanks, I don't really care for that. ...
No, it's not that I don't know what a prophet would say, you see. I do.
It's
not for lack of a message. I'm not interested in saying it. If there were a
prophet, of course, a prophet would tell us that America is a country that
God has blessed so much, we have not suffered as other people have. We
don't
know what suffering is like. We have not known war in our country since
1865. That experience of war in 1865 was so horrible in this country, the
Civil War, that we did not lift our hand against anybody for years and
years
after that. [note even here, Keillor ignores wars against the native
population.]
But over the years we've become so prosperous and we have developed
technology that allows us to deliver war to other people, and it never
falls
on us. We have no idea what war is like in this country. Our soldiers know,
but when they come back to tell us, we don't know what they're talking
about. We don't know what war is like in this country and so it behooves us
to be careful. And to rain down death on people and then to gloat over it
is
not becoming in God's eyes. This is not good. To rain down destruction from
this country, which knows so little suffering that our own navels become
the
source of our suffering is not pleasant or good in God's eyes. We should be
very careful, very careful. This is what a prophet would say, I think.
But who wants to say it, because prophets have an approval rating of five
percent, only in some places. No, I'd rather be in my line of work. ... God
was disappointed in me at first, but He's come around to seeing this more
and more from my point of view. ... God made mistakes...you spread the
truth
around and it becomes common and people ignore it. ... Whereas, with
someone
like me, if I ever do tell the truth, people remember it. ... I remember
every time I told the truth. Like a snowfall in July -- you remember every
time. [Partial transcripts via "Lying Through Their Teeth" by Danny C.
Campbell [PDF]. "The Favored of God" by Rev. Dr. Timothy Ives [doc].]
To me, Keillor's writings are a self-refutation. There's almost no need for
meaningful commentary. It's disguised in jest, but the obvious truth is
that
Keillor is explicitly saying that he doesn't want to be honest because our
society punishes people who are forthright about such truths. If looked at
clearly, the indictments to the society and himself could hardly be
harsher.
Beyond that, his calling Obama "the coolest president" almost dovetails
with
his critique of the Bush I bombing of Iraq. Keillor finds it reprehensible
that the U.S. would "rain down death on people and then to gloat over" --
as
much of the country did in 1991. And hearing his revulsion was a welcomed
thing for me at the time. But it would seem Keillor mostly doesn't like the
gloating.
Indeed, just around the time that Keillor was taping his final show on
Friday, the Obama administration finally released preposterously low-balled
estimates of the number of civilians killed in its drone terror program.
These were presumably for Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Libya. The numbers
excluded "areas of active hostilities" which the administration states
"currently include Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria." The timing of the release
of the numbers was particularly noteworthy -- a Friday afternoon of a July
4
weekend -- a transparent attempt to minimize coverage of the story. In a
minimally ethical world, the timing of the release would itself be part of
the indictment. The episode epitomizes patriotism as the last refuge of
scoundrels.
But this works with Keillor admiration of "cool." You want understated
bombings and geopolitical machinations. Soft power. Subtle threats, not
craven chest-beating. A massive global terror campaign with a pacifistic
veneer. You get the blown up limbs and collapsed states that posed an
obstacle to U.S. government elite designs without the handwringing. This is
far preferable to what gloating or goading people might have engaged in in
1991 or years since.
Along similar lines, another question of mine did get asked when Keillor
spoke at the Press Club last year -- or rather a neutered piece of it. I
asked: "Do you see contradictions of liberalism -- from LBJ to today --
proclaiming progress but backing wars, bombings, and increasingly presiding
over more economic inequality?"
This was notably truncated by the Press Club management (either John Hughes
or someone else who passed him my questions) to exclude the reference to
wars and bombings: "What is your opinion on liberalism? Do you see
contradictions from LBJ to today, proclaiming progress But also
increasingly
presiding over more economic inequality?" This prompted English major
Keillor's reply: "That is a powerful, complicated sentence. I am not sure I
could diagram that sentence. Yes of course there have been changes Since
then and defeats. But we don't have people running for public office
against
Social Security and Medicare. So that says a lot right there. You can
always
run against Washington. Welcome to the club. But they don't get very
specific about their plans for entitlement programs. They talk about them
sort of vaguely. The things that LBJ and his cohorts have set up seemed
fairly durable to me."
It's actually the same theme all round. Keillor on his show ignores
bombings
of several nations by a Democratic president. And the Press Club in their
choice of questioning excluded acknowledgement of same.
Keillor did make some reasonable remarks at the Press Club in my view: "We
need to take a deep breath and back away from the Middle East. ... You can
call this isolationism, you can call it ice tea. Whatever." His reasoning
was convoluted, but he got there in ways I won't pick apart here, but he
got
there. The funny part is that on the rare occasion I've tuned into his
show,
he's more likely to be talking about World War I than any of the wars the
U.S. government is waging now.
But perhaps the most bizarre answer from Keillor at the Press Club was in
response to a question submitted by someone else. They asked if Somali
immigrants were not changing the demographics of Lake Wobegon in Minnesota.
Keillor responded: "I don't know if I should introduce a Somali character
and what he or she would do in Lake Wobegon. I could have a Somali woman
who
could come as an intern to the Lutheran church. That would be interesting.
A
conversion and a young woman in training to become a pastor. That's a
possibility."
This was before liberals were aghast at Trump's remarks about Muslims. But
Keillor almost sounded Trumpish in his statements: "We have many listeners
among the Somalis to our shows. ... We have all these listeners because
they
can learn English by listening to 'A Prairie Home Companion.' We don't make
references to politics on the show."
See the depraved thought patterns here from a "liberal": Keillor can
seemingly only figure out a way to work a Muslim character into his stories
if they decide not to be a Muslim any more. Of course he does politics on
his show, he mocks Trump -- and in a sense, his very remarks about only
having Muslims on if they convert is quite political in the worst way.
Keillor of course expressed sympathy with the Somalis fleeing their
"disastrously war-torn country" -- but in a horribly familiar pattern,
expressed little interest about how it's managed to say so "war-torn."
Which
brings me to a final irony: One of the best analysts on Somalia, Abdi
Ismail
Samatar, is at the University of Minnesota. Right around the time Keillor
was speaking at the Press Club last year, Secretary of State John Kerry was
in Somalia and Samatar told me: "The U.S. should face up to its role in
bringing Somalia to its current state. It actually backed the warlords
against the Union of the Islamic Courts (UIC), which was trying to bring
some stability to the country. In 2005, the UIC defeated the warlords and
created peace in Mogadishu for the first time in years and without any help
from the international community. Rather than engaging with the UIC, the
U.S. and its African clients considered them as terrorists and Ethiopia was
given the green light to invade and dismantle it. Ethiopian forces took
over
Mogadishu on December 25, 2006, and the prospect of a peaceful resurrection
of Somalia perished."
But Keillor didn't need to get into the analysis if he doesn't want to. The
line of thought in the "Prophet" -- the missiles "never falls on us" was
the
heart of it. Connections could and should be drawn between different sorts
of tribal tendencies, whether in St. Paul or Damascus. Or just plain among
people. It's tragic that even if we awake to our current state, it may be
because of a realization of the vulnerability of people in the U.S. now as
well. It's wildly disproportionate, but the reaper of political violence
does now visit upon the U.S. public on occasion. But even with such
circumstances, we're not facing the realities.
Instead, we see a proliferation of brazen hypocrisies and defacto
apologetics for political violence. Do we really need a prophet to see
what's right in front of us?
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Sam Husseini
< Back to blog
Garrison Keillor's Prophecy and Apostasy
On what was billed as his last show, Garrison Keillor, host of "A Prairie
Home Companion" got a call from President Barack Obama and they traded
extensive compliments, with Keillor telling Obama he was "the coolest
president."
Keillor's signing off on July 4 weekend was likely calculated to accentuate
his presumed ties to all things Americana, but for me it actually
highlighted his hypocrisies and contradictions.
For one, my favorite story of his was set on the Fourth. I'd long thought
that any reasonable person who hears that story would concur it was his
greatest. Unfortunately when I asked him about it last year, Keillor
himself
clearly wouldn't fit into that category.
The story -- which he told shortly after the 1991 bombing of Iraq -- was
simply titled "Prophet." When I heard it at the time, it gave me a sense
that there was a silver of hope in turning the U.S. public around regarding
the country's place in the world. My girlfriend back then gave me the
cassette tape collection that included the story as a birthday present.
Until lawyers expunge it from the internet, you can listen to that story on
here. I've excerpted the heart of it below.
I tolerated Keillor's unevenness for years after that, listening on and
off.
I had an unsatisfying run in with him in 1999, but I'd overlooked that and
his various annoying proclivities, especially his seeming incessant
avoidance of the moral sins that created the U.S. -- because he told the
"Prophet" story. But you never really know someone until you have a chance
to ask them a couple of questions, as I did when he spoke at the National
Press Club last year.
He began his talk at the Press Club by bemoaning that people rarely
addressed particular things he'd written. They'd just say "good job" -- as
you "would say to a child who had had a bowel movement. ... As I look back
on my career in broadcasting, nobody had ever complemented me on a specific
thing. Nobody had ever quoted back to me some brilliant thing I had ever
said. It was always general. 'We like your show.' 'It really relaxes our
children.' 'We listen to it late at night.' And it occurred to me that
perhaps I had spent 40 years in radio as a sort of comforting baritone
presence and that nobody heard anything in particular that I had said."
I felt so good, because I had submitted a question about the "Prophet"
story
which he told decades earlier. Surely he'd be floored that someone
remembers
that story. Perhaps seeing that that's what resonated with people he would
be compelled to use his pulpit to do more of that caliber of commentary.
The moderator of the event, then Press Club President John Hughes did ask
that question: "One of your greatest stories on 'A Prairie Home Companion'
was the 'Prophet' which you told during the 1991 Gulf War. What would a
prophet tell us now?"
But Keillor basically renounced the story: "I am not in the prophecy
business and sort of regret that monologue. I've been trying to forget it
for years and years. It was one of my ill-advised ventures into political
commentary. I had almost erased it from my mind, John. You brought back a
little tiny bit of it. That's p-r-o-p-h-e-t? I have no idea -- I have been
around and seen a lot of young people in the last month ..."
He yada-yada-ed for a bit about passing the mantle, but the point was made.
[See video.]
Here's the most substantial chunks of the "Prophet" story:
I recall when I was a little boy, going to the volunteer fire department
Fourth of July picnic. My family doesn't remember this at all, but they
have
very poor memories. ... I got the beans on my plate and I had the bun and I
had just put the wiener in the bun and I was just squeezing the ketchup and
the air turned white and it was snowing. Snow was falling and everybody was
amazed and then somebody said, "oh no", they said, "It's fluff from the
cottonwood trees, it's just seeds coming down from the cottonwood trees",
and so, that was that, but then I looked down at my plate and there was
nothing there. Now cottonwood fluff does not melt. Seeds don't just
disappear. It was snow on the Fourth of July. A snow flurry hit Lake
Wobegon
on the Fourth of July when I was a boy, but if you talk to anybody,
including my family who was at the Volunteer Fire Department Bean Feed that
day in 1951 on the Fourth of July, they will tell you that was fluff from
the cottonwood trees that came down. I was the only one who knew the truth.
A terrible responsibility for a child and one more reason to leave town,
you
know. There were too many things that I was the only one that knew them...
Stunning thought, but when God sends snow down on the Fourth of July, that
indicates to me that he is talking to us in a loud voice and apparently I
was the only one who saw this and therefore, the only one who might have a
hunch what God was trying to tell us, but I turned down the privilege,
thank
you very much, no thank you. To be a prophet was too much for me then and
it's too much for me now. To be a prophet is hard work anytime and
anyplace,
but you never want to do it in a town of less than 2,000 population. If you
live there and if you come from there. To stand and to tell people the
truth
that they have been successfully avoiding is not a pleasant business in a
small town.
Back in 1918 in my town, back when the streets were lined with flags and
when school children sat for hours of deadly nonsense about glory and honor
and this war was a war to end all wars, this war would usher in a New World
Order. Sat and listened to this there was a man on a bench outside a
grocery
store and turned to the man next to him and said, "I wish they'd take the
flags down, I don't think there's any glory in this war, it's just a bunch
of politicians." And the word got around town of this man's remarks, this
slur on our country ... and people would not speak to him again for a long
time...
You have become a scourge. You have become a prophet and it's time to time
to hit the road Jack. You gotta get out of this town. Well, that never
happened to me and I'm not ever going to have it happen to me. That's what
God was offering me when he had the snow fall on the Fourth of July and I
saw it. He was saying, "Witness to people about this. Reveal the truth of
this and be a prophet." I said, "No thank you, I don't want it." He said,
"This will be a great service to people whom you love, to tell them the
truth". I said, "Well they're not going to thank me for it. I know that for
sure. People hurt prophets. They throw sharp things at them. They rip the
clothes off them and they make them sit for long periods of time in
uncomfortable positions on top of sharp objects that are extremely
flammable. That's what they do to prophets. I don't want that. I don't want
any pain whatsoever. I don't ever want to experience any pain. Minor
dentistry is more than enough for me. So, no thank you. I don't want to be
a
prophet and tell the truth. What can I do that's the opposite of that?" And
so, I got into this line of work. Telling lies and I've never regretted it,
which is a terrible thing to say in front of children. To say that you've
spent your life telling lies, but I have and I've had a wonderful time, and
I have been very well rewarded for this, and I have been congratulated by
all sorts of people including members of the clergy, whereas if I had been
prophet and told the truth, I would be broke and I would be unhappy myself
and I would be despised and I would be condemned from most pulpits in the
country. No thanks, I don't really care for that. ...
No, it's not that I don't know what a prophet would say, you see. I do.
It's
not for lack of a message. I'm not interested in saying it. If there were a
prophet, of course, a prophet would tell us that America is a country that
God has blessed so much, we have not suffered as other people have. We
don't
know what suffering is like. We have not known war in our country since
1865. That experience of war in 1865 was so horrible in this country, the
Civil War, that we did not lift our hand against anybody for years and
years
after that. [note even here, Keillor ignores wars against the native
population.]
But over the years we've become so prosperous and we have developed
technology that allows us to deliver war to other people, and it never
falls
on us. We have no idea what war is like in this country. Our soldiers know,
but when they come back to tell us, we don't know what they're talking
about. We don't know what war is like in this country and so it behooves us
to be careful. And to rain down death on people and then to gloat over it
is
not becoming in God's eyes. This is not good. To rain down destruction from
this country, which knows so little suffering that our own navels become
the
source of our suffering is not pleasant or good in God's eyes. We should be
very careful, very careful. This is what a prophet would say, I think.
But who wants to say it, because prophets have an approval rating of five
percent, only in some places. No, I'd rather be in my line of work. ... God
was disappointed in me at first, but He's come around to seeing this more
and more from my point of view. ... God made mistakes...you spread the
truth
around and it becomes common and people ignore it. ... Whereas, with
someone
like me, if I ever do tell the truth, people remember it. ... I remember
every time I told the truth. Like a snowfall in July -- you remember every
time. [Partial transcripts via "Lying Through Their Teeth" by Danny C.
Campbell [PDF]. "The Favored of God" by Rev. Dr. Timothy Ives [doc].]
To me, Keillor's writings are a self-refutation. There's almost no need for
meaningful commentary. It's disguised in jest, but the obvious truth is
that
Keillor is explicitly saying that he doesn't want to be honest because our
society punishes people who are forthright about such truths. If looked at
clearly, the indictments to the society and himself could hardly be
harsher.
Beyond that, his calling Obama "the coolest president" almost dovetails
with
his critique of the Bush I bombing of Iraq. Keillor finds it reprehensible
that the U.S. would "rain down death on people and then to gloat over" --
as
much of the country did in 1991. And hearing his revulsion was a welcomed
thing for me at the time. But it would seem Keillor mostly doesn't like the
gloating.
Indeed, just around the time that Keillor was taping his final show on
Friday, the Obama administration finally released preposterously low-balled
estimates of the number of civilians killed in its drone terror program.
These were presumably for Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Libya. The numbers
excluded "areas of active hostilities" which the administration states
"currently include Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria." The timing of the release
of the numbers was particularly noteworthy -- a Friday afternoon of a July
4
weekend -- a transparent attempt to minimize coverage of the story. In a
minimally ethical world, the timing of the release would itself be part of
the indictment. The episode epitomizes patriotism as the last refuge of
scoundrels.
But this works with Keillor admiration of "cool." You want understated
bombings and geopolitical machinations. Soft power. Subtle threats, not
craven chest-beating. A massive global terror campaign with a pacifistic
veneer. You get the blown up limbs and collapsed states that posed an
obstacle to U.S. government elite designs without the handwringing. This is
far preferable to what gloating or goading people might have engaged in in
1991 or years since.
Along similar lines, another question of mine did get asked when Keillor
spoke at the Press Club last year -- or rather a neutered piece of it. I
asked: "Do you see contradictions of liberalism -- from LBJ to today --
proclaiming progress but backing wars, bombings, and increasingly presiding
over more economic inequality?"
This was notably truncated by the Press Club management (either John Hughes
or someone else who passed him my questions) to exclude the reference to
wars and bombings: "What is your opinion on liberalism? Do you see
contradictions from LBJ to today, proclaiming progress But also
increasingly
presiding over more economic inequality?" This prompted English major
Keillor's reply: "That is a powerful, complicated sentence. I am not sure I
could diagram that sentence. Yes of course there have been changes Since
then and defeats. But we don't have people running for public office
against
Social Security and Medicare. So that says a lot right there. You can
always
run against Washington. Welcome to the club. But they don't get very
specific about their plans for entitlement programs. They talk about them
sort of vaguely. The things that LBJ and his cohorts have set up seemed
fairly durable to me."
It's actually the same theme all round. Keillor on his show ignores
bombings
of several nations by a Democratic president. And the Press Club in their
choice of questioning excluded acknowledgement of same.
Keillor did make some reasonable remarks at the Press Club in my view: "We
need to take a deep breath and back away from the Middle East. ... You can
call this isolationism, you can call it ice tea. Whatever." His reasoning
was convoluted, but he got there in ways I won't pick apart here, but he
got
there. The funny part is that on the rare occasion I've tuned into his
show,
he's more likely to be talking about World War I than any of the wars the
U.S. government is waging now.
But perhaps the most bizarre answer from Keillor at the Press Club was in
response to a question submitted by someone else. They asked if Somali
immigrants were not changing the demographics of Lake Wobegon in Minnesota.
Keillor responded: "I don't know if I should introduce a Somali character
and what he or she would do in Lake Wobegon. I could have a Somali woman
who
could come as an intern to the Lutheran church. That would be interesting.
A
conversion and a young woman in training to become a pastor. That's a
possibility."
This was before liberals were aghast at Trump's remarks about Muslims. But
Keillor almost sounded Trumpish in his statements: "We have many listeners
among the Somalis to our shows. ... We have all these listeners because
they
can learn English by listening to 'A Prairie Home Companion.' We don't make
references to politics on the show."
See the depraved thought patterns here from a "liberal": Keillor can
seemingly only figure out a way to work a Muslim character into his stories
if they decide not to be a Muslim any more. Of course he does politics on
his show, he mocks Trump -- and in a sense, his very remarks about only
having Muslims on if they convert is quite political in the worst way.
Keillor of course expressed sympathy with the Somalis fleeing their
"disastrously war-torn country" -- but in a horribly familiar pattern,
expressed little interest about how it's managed to say so "war-torn."
Which
brings me to a final irony: One of the best analysts on Somalia, Abdi
Ismail
Samatar, is at the University of Minnesota. Right around the time Keillor
was speaking at the Press Club last year, Secretary of State John Kerry was
in Somalia and Samatar told me: "The U.S. should face up to its role in
bringing Somalia to its current state. It actually backed the warlords
against the Union of the Islamic Courts (UIC), which was trying to bring
some stability to the country. In 2005, the UIC defeated the warlords and
created peace in Mogadishu for the first time in years and without any help
from the international community. Rather than engaging with the UIC, the
U.S. and its African clients considered them as terrorists and Ethiopia was
given the green light to invade and dismantle it. Ethiopian forces took
over
Mogadishu on December 25, 2006, and the prospect of a peaceful resurrection
of Somalia perished."
But Keillor didn't need to get into the analysis if he doesn't want to. The
line of thought in the "Prophet" -- the missiles "never falls on us" was
the
heart of it. Connections could and should be drawn between different sorts
of tribal tendencies, whether in St. Paul or Damascus. Or just plain among
people. It's tragic that even if we awake to our current state, it may be
because of a realization of the vulnerability of people in the U.S. now as
well. It's wildly disproportionate, but the reaper of political violence
does now visit upon the U.S. public on occasion. But even with such
circumstances, we're not facing the realities.
Instead, we see a proliferation of brazen hypocrisies and defacto
apologetics for political violence. Do we really need a prophet to see
what's right in front of us?
