Olivia de Havilland, R.I.P.

Olivia de Havilland, a very beloved actress from the Golden Age
of Film, appearing in classics such as Captain Blood,
Gone With The Wind, To Each His Own, The Heiress,
The Adventures of Robin Hood, and They Died With Their
Boots On, and the last surviving film luminary of her era,
went to join her friends and colleagues shortly after her 104th
birthday in July. Best known for her role as Melanie Wilkes
in the second of these aforementioned films, in which she
played a physically unimposing yet indomitable woman
with a blend of graciousness and quiet strength, and a
dash of courage. In real life, de Havilland exhibited these
same qualities during some tense times in the film industry.

In the 1940s de Havilland played a key role in thwarting the
Communist subversion of Hollywood. After having met
President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940 as a 24-year-old
actress, she became an ardent supporter. Four years later
she joined the pro-FDR Independent Citizens' Committee
of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions, which had for its
members famous actors such as Humphrey Bogart, Gregory
Peck, and Bette Davis. British-born and having recently
become a U.S. citizen, she thought this a fine thing to do.
She would soon get more than she bargained for; the
ICCASP's membership had more than a few Communists
in its numbers. Its leader, Hannah Dorner, was a secret
member of the Communist Party. De Havilland soon
discovered that the Executive Committee of the group
always sided with the Soviet Union in foreign policy
matters and was always critical of the United States.
This was a dead giveaway to de Havilland; wondering
why this was so, some investigating on her part revealed
a small cadre of people controlling the organization made
these decisions without the knowledge of the majority
of the general membership.

De Havilland took immediate action by inviting a small
group of actors, writers, and producers to her home to
discuss what course of action to take to wrest control of
the ICCASP from the reds. One of the actors present was
a friend who would go on to have quite a career in politics,
future U.S. President Ronald Reagan. They drafted a
declaration to oppose the Communist control of the
group, with the latter using the FDR-supporting organiza-
tion as a front group. The declaration was roundly rejected,
and de Havilland soon after resigned her membership, followed
by Reagan and other Hollywood figures. But not much later on,
de Havilland and her allies would win out, as the
ICCASP consequentially folded and the communist threat to
the U.S. film industry would dissipate in the 1950s. She made
her Hollywood colleagues choose between being
advocates for liberal democracy and being stooges for the
Communism, spreading Soviet propaganda through the
industry and onto movie screens around the country;
for this Olivia de Havilland should be praised and
remembered for her courage and her patriotism even
more than for her wonderful acting and the films she
appeared in.

Oh, and she fought the Hollywood studios and their powerful
moguls for actors' rights; she won that battle, too.

Requiescat in pace, courageous lady. You have set both an example
and a standard on the silver screen, and more importantly,
in life. Thank you for your legacy.



MEM

The Democrats' Inclusiveness Does Not Include Pro-Lifers

Your favorite Peasant has commented here on the dwindling
ranks of the pro-lifers in the Democrat Party. Here is an update:
Some time earlier the Democratic Attorneys General Association
announced to the party faithful that they will from now on give
monetary and strategic assistance only to AG candidates who
publicly commit and adhere to the Dem's pro-abortion orthodoxy,
which includes opposing any restrictions on abortion. Those who
stand for the right to life for the unborn humans or have even the
tiniest qualm about eliminating the tiny humans awaiting their births
need not apply for said help, nor even run for their states' AG offices
(or any offices, period); the Democrat Party will even run candidates
more to their liking against them in the state Democrat primaries.

Now, in Louisiana pro-life Governor John Bel Edwards was re-elected
to another gubernatorial term; this after having signed a bill that
requires doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges
at a nearby hospital. There in the South, Democrats that win statewide
races largely do so by demonstrating their independence from their
party's predominant national left wing -- especially its stand on
abortion.

Your supportive Peasant commends these courageous Democrats for
their principled and unwavering stands. Whether they will ever make
a comeback in their increasingly extremist party, or one day exit
the party to join the Republicans, form a pro-life third party, or
take some different political tack is something that only the future
can reveal, but their party is making itself more and more irrelevant
to the mainstream voters in our electorate --- who are pro-life or at
least have serious questions and concerns regarding the morality
of abortion --- and just happen to be the majority of said electorate.
Something's got to give; stay tuned.


MEM

To Debate or Not Debate?

Recently the Commission on Presidential Debates scheduled
three debates for the presumptive Democrat nominee, Joe
Biden and the incumbent President Donald Trump. But some
observers of our political scene think that perhaps the debates
should not be held at all. Elizabeth Drew, a liberal journalist
who was a panelist during one of the 1976 debates, declared
"The debates have never made sense as a test for presidential
leadership," because points get awarded for "snappy comebacks
and one-liners."

There is some truth to her argument, but in this uniquely weird
and unsettling year it is all the more important that the debates
are held, for the Covid-19 pandemic has forced the postponement
and/or cancellations of many political rallies, making for less
opportunities to see the candidates in the flesh. The conventions
will be almost totally online. Biden hasn't done any Sunday
shows since the pandemic arrived on our shores. Then, too,
one must note that Biden has been kept out of the public eye
as much as possible by his campaign team because of his increased
(and increasing) propensity for uttering more gaffes; a few years
ago on this blog your favorite Peasant called Biden "The Gaffemaster
General of the United States". With his seemingly diminished
mental facilities which has been increasingly obvious in recent
months Team Biden has been anxious to prevent further instances
of what has become the country's worst-kept secret.

The former Vice President, if he were to win the presidential election
in November, would take office at age 78 ---  making him the oldest
president American history. Biden has already confused Iowa with
Ohio on a campaign stop there a few months earlier, has confused
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson with the late former PM
Margaret Thatcher, and bragged about putting together the Paris
climate accord with Chinese head of state Deng Xiaoping ---
perhaps Biden enlisted the aid of a medium to do this, as Deng
has been dead since 1997. And these are but a few examples of
his increasing cognitive lapses.

The debates can certainly be overhauled so as to improve the quality
of the candidates' responses to questions and retorts to verbal jabs.
Better this than cancel the debates altogether, which will leave much
of the public out of the loop for getting a feel for the candidates and
their stands on the pressing issues of the day, thus helping them to
make up their minds as to whom to vote for. And since Biden likes
to rip on President Trump, calling him a racist, a liar, and inept as
our president from the safety of his bunker, as it were, he should
have the courage to face his target up close and personal and repeat
his slurs.

Let the candidates compete; keep and hold the debates!


MEM

How to Restore Order to Troubled Cities

After over sixty straight days of rioting and destruction,
Portland, Oregon has had a dramatic reversal in its
sorry fortunes. What happened?

Portland, like some other major U.S. cities, have seen
violent outbreaks after the death of George Floyd, the
black man who died when a white Minneapolis police
officer kneeled on his neck in order to restrain him,
but cut off his oxygen in the process resulting in Floyd's
death. Portland's mayor, Ted Wheeler, prior to the
violence there, had in effect given control of Portland
to radical groups not adverse to relying on violence in
order to get what they want, refused to let the city's
officers do their jobs and quell the rioting and looting.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown likewise refused to dispatch
the state's National Guard to Portland to restore order.
So President Trump stepped in, sending federal marshals
to Portland to do the work that the local police should
have done had they not been ordered to stand down by
Mayor Wheeler.

In the short time that the marshals were there,
they succeeded in preventing any further attacks on the
federal courthouse as well as any subsequent rioting
and general violence. After this episode the local
police were then freed up to do their jobs, and have
been keeping a lid on further mayhem. Acting Homeland
Security Secretary Chad Wolf hailed the relative calm,
tweeting that "stepping up and doing the right thing should
not take 60 days."

With President Trump's intervention in Portland, as well as
similar ones in some other cities (including your Peasant's
Milwaukee), he is letting city residents know that there is
nothing making shooting, looting, and burning unavoidable,
that it is the result of the horrible choices to let it all happen
by the mayors and other public officials who couldn't care
less about the safety of their cities' residents. These same
officials then criticize the actions of the president and the
feds sent to their cities instead of the rioters.

This summer has had some parallels to the summer of 1968
in which a riot broke out in Chicago, just outside the site
of the Democrats' national convention. There were riots in
other cities, Milwaukee included, in reaction to the Vietnam
War and to racial tensions. The American people reacted
by electing Republican Richard Nixon president, steering
clear of the Democrats and the view of what the country
might have looked like under their governance. One big
difference here is that Republican Donald Trump is the
incumbent seeking a second term, and the electorate is
seeing the contrast between President Trump's decisive
actions taken to restore and preserve order and safety in
our urban areas as opposed to the Democrat mayors and
governors enabling the forces of anarchy and attendant
crimes by sitting on their hands. President Trump
and the Republicans will reap a victorious harvest in
November, and history will have repeated itself.

This is how you restore order to the troubled cities;
you do the jobs of the local authorities in order to get
them to do their jobs themselves.


MEM