Lessons From Watergate                                                                 #225

By Hank Silverberg

We are coming up on a major historical anniversary next week. It was 50 years ago, on June 17, 1972, when a group of burglars broke into the Democratic National Committee Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. It started what was then the biggest criminal/political scandal

(Watergate Hotel, Courtesy Library of Congress)

in U.S. history. It led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon two years later--the result of a massive attempt to cover it all up and subsequent impeachment hearings. 

It has been described as a major constitutional test in our history, almost to the same degree as the Civil War.     

Nixon and his minions wanted to hold onto power by manipulating who won the Democratic primaries so that Nixon would face a weak candidate in the general election. It involved a series of dirty tricks against various Democrats. The break-in was supposed to turn up some dirt. But it was the cover up of that political plot that included the break-in that did in Nixon. 

https://www.history.com/topics/1970s/watergate

You will hear a lot of this history over the next few weeks. And much will be said about the lessons learned during that scandal. 

But here's one lesson that seems lost. It took aggressive reporting by The Washington Post team of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein over several months, to break it all down. Other journalists quickly followed their lead and kept up the heat. And then, once the plot became clear after a series of televised Congressional impeachment hearings, it took some courageous Republican lawmakers to ram it home. Senators Howard Baker and Lowell Weicker and other noted Republicans like Barry Goldwater chose country over party and went to the White House to convince Nixon to resign before he was impeached.  He did so on August 8th, 1974. 

Even Richard Nixon, a vain, brusque and corrupt politician, could see the writing on the wall and the damage to the nation. 

Many of Nixon's gang went to jail. Nixon himself broke the law and may have been put on trial and gone to jail. But President Ford wanted it all gone, and he pardoned Nixon six weeks after he resigned. Ford used these words announcing the pardon:  "Our long national nightmare is over." 

 But somehow the lesson of 1972-1974 has faded in the past 50 years. 

January 6th, and the reaction to it has proven that.  

The Press, which played a key role in finding the truth during Watergate, seems wimpy today. There are still some great journalists out there who have been doing their jobs by trying to expose the illegal actions of the Defeated Former President (Trump).  Ironically, that includes both Woodward and Bernstein. But too much of the media is wrapped up in chasing down ridiculous conspiracy theories and quoting Republican politicians who seem to have lost their sense of reality.  And in fact, a substantial part of the media is actually repeating the lies of the #DFP and his minions. 

There no longer seems to be a substantial number of Republicans who are willing to hear, see and react to the truth and put country over party. They won't even participate in the hearings on the Trump-inspired January 6th insurrection.  

Where are the real leaders like Baker and Weicker with some guts to see the truth and react to it? Trump may not be President any longer. And hopefully he won't ever be again. But the new, and longer national nightmare he started is far from over.  The cult-like adoration that launched him to the presidency did not fade with his defeat in 2020. (Many of his followers won't even acknowledge that defeat.)  

  

As I watch our Congress today and see the stagnation and the unwillingness to act together for the good of the country, I am reminded of this quote from George Washington's Farewell Address in 1796, much of which was actually written by Alexander Hamilton.   

"The spirit of party ... serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection."

Washington and Hamilton, like most of our Founding Fathers, were not perfect. They were flawed men. But they sure did understand the pratfalls and danger of partisan politics.   

Climate Change Migration!

Within the next 20 years, more than 200 million people could be displaced or forced to migrate elsewhere because of climate change.

With hurricane season upon us again, it's a sobering thought. 

The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre says on average, 11 million people lost their homes in each of the last five years because of extreme weather. In 2017 that number was 14.6 million people. That adds up to 45 million homes, based on a five-person household. 

The political and social impact of such losses and the migration that follows can have big political and economic impact worldwide, increasing the strain on government and non-profit relief agencies and increasing the potential for armed conflict.

Here are some examples. In 2020, about 10,000 people attempted to migrate to North America from Central America because of catastrophic storms. 

(Hurricane Iota, 2020, NOAA)

Hurricanes Eta and Iota, which hit just two weeks apart, displaced more than 600,000 people in Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua.  

This past April, flooding in South Africa killed 448 people and displaced more than 40,000.  

Sanj Srikanthan, the CEO of the international group Shelterbox, which provides aid to people displaced by natural disasters or political conflict, says climate change is playing a major role in the displacement. And when you consider that 70% of the world's population live near water or coastal areas, things could get worse. 

Last year the World Bank also estimated climate change could displace more than 200 million people by 2050.

What's the solution? United Nation's climate scientists say reducing greenhouse gas emissions will help. The Earth is already likely to warm more than 1.5 degrees Celsius by the 2030's, increasing heatwaves, storms, drought and cyclones. 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/extreme-weather-displace-200-million-people-within-20-years-disaster-relief-charity-ceo-warns/

Despite surging crises and the potential natural and political disasters climate change can cause in the future, there has been little action in the United States or in many other countries to mitigate the damage from climate change. I can't help but wonder what life on Earth will be like for my grandchildren when they are the age I am now.   

Corpse Plant!

There's a big stink in Washington, D.C. again. It smells like a corpse. We're not talking politics, though.  

The so-called "corpse flower" (technically a Amorphophallus titaum), has begun blooming again at the U.S. Botanic Garden. The plant is nine years old and was grown from a seed of a sibling that bloomed at eight years. The plant, which is now 97 inches

(Courtesy U.S. Botanic Garden)

tall, opened on June 2nd. They can grow as high as 8 feet. It is an endangered species. There may be only a thousand of the plants left in the world. Logging and the creation of palm plantations in its native habitat in the rainforests of Sumatra have almost killed off the plant.

Why is it called the "corpse plant?"  Simply, when it blooms, it smells like a corpse that's been dead for several days. You can see time-lapse photography of the plant blooming in 2020 at the link below.  

https://www.usbg.gov/corpse-flowers-us-botanic-garden

If you are in the D.C. area, the Botanic Garden is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day. You can go in, see it and smell it for yourself. 

Vindictive Hardball Politics 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is at it again. He has vetoed a line item in the state budget that would have given the Tampa Bay Rays $35 million for a new training facility. He was undecided on the money until the Rays sent out a tweet in reaction to the mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde.

Here's the tweet:

Tampa Bay Rays

@RaysBaseball

That's when DeSantis issued a line-item veto to eliminate the money. He said he didn't believe in using taxpayer's dollars for sports stadiums. That's a position that many people agree with. But this was a training facility that will be used by the community and young people in the Odessa, Florida area when the Rays are not in town. So, it's not exactly a stadium. 

And the timing of the veto, coming right after the Ray's statement and the donation to the gun safety group, makes it suspect. Especially when DeSantis added this comment at a news conference. He said it was "inappropriate to subsidize political activism of a private corporation." 

Several major league teams, including the Rays, also used their game coverage tweets to post facts about gun violence the day after the Uvalde shootings.   

You can decide for yourself, was DeSantis being vindictive like he was with Disney last month on the LGBTQ+ issue? 

Manatees

Speaking of Florida, here's another thing that state has failed to deal with. The graceful Manatee, an endangered species, continues to be in danger. The National Wildlife Federation says more than a thousand died in Florida waters in 2021, more than any other year in history and more than twice the number which died in 2020. And unless there is some human mitigation, they will soon be extinct. 

Among the biggest causes of death for the beautiful creatures are collision with the hulls and propellers of boats. They also become stuck in flood gates or canal locks. Other causes include fishing nets, hooks and litter, particularly plastic. Red Tide, also created by human pollution of their habitats, also kills them. 

But the startling new cause is starvation brought on by the destruction of seagrasses by pollution of the estuaries where the Manatees feed.  

There are between 6,300 and 7,500 Manatees left in Florida. They had made a big comeback since the 1970's when the population was down to just a few hundred. But the species' dramatic recovery has now been reversed.  

https://swimmingwiththemanatees.com/manatee-deaths-prevent/

Dumbest Quote of The Week

This one actually comes from last week, but it was so dumb I couldn't let it get by. This man can really   play football, but he should have stayed out of politics. Heisman Trophy Winner Hershal Walker is running for the U.S. Senate as a Republican from Georgia. He was on Fox News responding to questions about the mass shootings that have been plaguing the country. His solution to the problem?

  “What we need to do is look into how we can stop those things. You know, you talked about doing a disinformation — what about getting a department that can look at young men that’s looking at women that’s looking at their social media. What about doing that? Looking into things like that and we can stop that that way. But yet they want to just continue to talk about taking away your constitutional rights.  And I think there’s more things we need to look into. This has been happening for years and the way we stop it is putting money into the mental health field, by putting money into other departments rather than departments that want to take away your rights.”

What? Mr. Walker may have been tackled too many times when he was playing football.

(Your comments and suggestions are welcome)

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