Would Trump military parade merely honor the REMFs of the world?

I find it somewhat odd that President Donald J. Trump would be taking inspiration from France and Bastille Day for a way to put on a great big spectacle ultimately paying tribute to himself.

This is what inspired Donald Trump to think of a military parade in the streets of D.C.

For the storming of the Bastille, which led to the ultimate overthrow of King Louis XVI, was literally a moment when the peasants of France overthrew their wealthy royal nobleman of a leader who actually supported the concept of American independence – someone who along with Marie Antoinette were most definitely not of the people.

YOU’D THINK THAT even Trump would realize that he’s the comparative figure to Louis (with first lady Melania being the equivalent of the alleged “cake eating” lady). The comparable move would be if the masses of this country (the majority of whom didn’t vote for him) were to get fed up enough to violently overthrow him.

Is that really the image Trump wants to put in the public mindset? Besides, I thought the Trump-types were the ones who openly denounced anything associated with France?

Somebody’s not thinking this all the way through. But as Trump himself said, he saw the big Bastille Day parade last year in France, saw the grand martial display of power and authority, and wishes he could have something similar to pay tribute to himself.

How Trumpian is the image of old ...

Which has led to countless numbers of people using their Photoshop software to create all kinds of goofy images portraying Trump as some sort of equivalent of the late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.

WHICH WOULD BE the closest you’d find to photographic images of Trump in a military uniform – for as so many have pointed out, he was of military age during the Vietnam War era, yet managed to avoid doing any sort of military service.

Heck, even George W. Bush could claim to have been in the Texas Air National Guard (although some insist he didn’t even fulfill the minimum service requirements) back in that era.

Not that I expect the ideologues who claim to value military service to mind so much – maybe they can be bought off by the image of a military parade. Forget about a Trump presidency actually accomplishing anything significant or meeting any of its promises.

... of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette?

You got a great big garish parade!!!

IF YOU’VE GOT the impression by now that I don’t think much of the idea of a parade, you’d be correct.

It’s actually mostly because I don’t really care much for parades in general. There are more sincere ways to pay tribute to someone than to stage a grand spectacle clogging the streets of the city, while expecting the masses to stand passively by.

I think those who serve in the military deserve more than a parade whose real purpose would be to pay tribute to the man with the bad combover whom many (including my sister-in-law, Vicki) refer to as the “big cheetoh.”

Perhaps it’s because I remember the two big military spectacles in Chicago during my adult life – back in 1986 and 1991. The latter was a series of parades held across the country to pay tribute to those who were in the military (including a cousin of mine) during the Gulf War of 1990.

Is this Trump's image of himself?

REMEMBER WHEN WE were foolish enough to have thought we resolved all the disarray and chaos of the Middle East in a matter of two months in Kuwait?

The former was when some types of people felt the need to finally put an end to the Vietnam era by staging parades welcoming back the troops who were so callously ignored when they really returned home more than a decade earlier.

I still remember watching that parade, and being told by veterans who actually saw combat that the crowds of former soldiers on display here were most likely the “REMFs” who never even came close to the front lines of fighting (figure out the obscenity for yourself). Is that what we’re most likely to see from a military spectacle in this Age of Trump?

DUCKWORTH: Most accurate?

If that’s the case, then perhaps Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., is correct with her latest fund-raising e-mail, in which she says troops, “don’t need a show of bravado. They need steady leadership. They need long term funding.” And if they don’t get it, perhaps someday the masses will be offended enough to revolt in a Bastille-style image against Trump Tower buildings around the country. That would be gory.

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Will we celebrate budget deal on Bastille Day? Only if we bring along guillotine to take off pols heads

We’re past the Independence Day holiday weekend. But those of us interested in figuring out when Illinois government will finally resolve its budgetary differences are focusing on a different holiday.

Also the day the Senate will try again to solve state budget

As in Bastille Day, that holiday on July 14 related to the French Revolution and the overthrow of King Louis XVI.

THERE WILL BE celebrations in Chicago (in the shadow of the Picasso at Daley Plaza – to be exact). But that day is also the date that the Illinois Senate is scheduled to convene again at the Statehouse.

Which means that legislative officials don’t foresee any reason to think that Gov. Bruce Rauner, a Republican, and the Democratic leaders of the General Assembly will actually come to an agreement on anything they could vote for to implement a state budget for the fiscal year that began on Wednesday.

Barring a miracle, that session to be held a week from Tuesday will be nothing more than the senators meeting, formally telling each other that there’s still nothing to be done, then adjourning to go back home until a yet-to-be-determined date in the future.

Now I know some people are going to try to claim that it’s irresponsible for the legislators to hide back in their home districts and do nothing while the state lingers without a budget in place and the potential for agencies to have to shut down their activity because there’s nothing in place (except for public education) to tell them how to spend their money.

BUT IT REALLY isn’t. Because this is a dispute amongst the leadership over issues that really have nothing to do with budgeting.

RAUNER: Does he think he's Louis XVI?

I was actually pleased to see the Illinois House of Representatives last month reject an effort to implement a status quo budget that would only be in place for the month of July.

Keep government going while the officials talk seriously about the long-term budget, is their line of logic. Which is nonsense.

All that would do is encourage a sense of laziness amongst the political people – who probably are going to need to feel pressure and contempt from the public before they finally get off their derrieres and do something to resolve the situation.

MADIGAN: As revolutionary seems a stretch

AS OF NOW, I don’t have a clue when that will happen. Anybody else who says they know is seriously lying to all of us.

Because this is a partisan spat between people who are trying to assert their authority as “top dog” of the Illinois Statehouse scene.

Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, likes the idea of being the top guy whose intense knowledge of the workings of the legislative process makes him the guy who enables things to happen, while Rauner is the guy who thinks that having the gubernatorial title entitles him to call the shots to benefit the desires of his business-oriented buddies.

But Madigan does have that “veto proof majority” in his own chamber and in the Illinois Senate that enables him to thumb his nose at the governor

WHICH IS WHAT the two of them are doing to each other. It’s all about one-upmanship. Everything Rauner has done in recent weeks has been geared toward trying to place the blame for anything that does wrong on Madigan.

Because the reality is that the governor will be the one who gets smacked around once people lose a state payroll check or aid payment of some sort. It’s part of being the guv, which isn’t as good a post as being “king” – remember Mel Brooks as Louis XVI in “History of the World, Part 1?”

That could be all too appropriate. Since we have officials who currently are acting in a French Revolution mentality – they want to do the “Off with their head” routine to the other guy.

While the masses of Illinois get offended enough at politicians who tell us all the equivalent of "Let them eat cake" that we want to bring in the guillotine for use on everybody.

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Does Quinn’s Juarez tribute boost him amongst Chicago’s Latino population?

It may be pure coincidence. Perhaps I’m reading way too much into this.

QUINN: Seeking Latino vote?

But I’m sure Gov. Pat Quinn doesn’t mind the way the timing worked out over his participation in a ceremony held Friday in Chicago to pay tribute to the memory of one-time Mexico President Benito Juarez.

AS IT TURNS out, Friday’s events at the Thompson Center state government building to mark the 208^th anniversary of Juarez’ birth allowed for a proclamation that said Friday was Benito Juarez Day in Illinois.

Which came one day after Quinn’s current political opponent, Republican gubernatorial nominee Bruce Rauner, released his first campaign advertising spot of the general election cycle – and it’s in Spanish.

I suspect that reaching out to Latino voters is going to be a crucial part of Rauner’s attempts to unseat Quinn – and that first ad telling us en Espanol how inept Quinn has been is just the first step.

Not that I think Rauner (“Mr. .01 percent?”) really cares about the growing Latino population. But any votes he can steal from Quinn help benefit his own desires.

WHICH MAKES ME wonder how much of Friday’s activities were Quinn’s way of showing he, too, cares about the Latino segment of the electorate?

He makes a gesture to show support to Latino (actually in this case, Mexican) culture. It doesn’t win him an election all by itself.

But it does show that at least somebody on his staff had a sense of history in mind, which allows for the governor to gain the benefits of a Friday morning ceremony at the Thompson Center – where a display had been erected in recent days to pay tribute to Juarez’ memory.

Cinema's takes on Juarez ..

For those of you whose sense of history doesn’t go back any farther than the name “Ronald Reagan,” Juarez was a Mexican political leader who became president in the 1860s – a time when the United States was split in civil war and Mexico had its own mess with the French attempting to intervene by trying to reassert an American colonial presence at Mexico’s expense.

JUAREZ SPENT MUCH of his presidency in exile, but was able to maintain a movement of an independent Mexico that kept the French from establishing themselves permanently in North America, while also keeping the French from being able to offer aid and comfort to the concept of a Confederacy that would have split the United States in two.

... and Lincoln

He also had a vision of Democracy for Mexico, modeled after the United States. Which is how he got the tags, “the Abraham Lincoln of Mexico” and “Father of the Americas.”

It also is noteworthy that when Lincoln was elected president following the 1860 elections and was preparing to travel to Washington to assume the post, it was an emissary of Juarez who first met with Lincoln at his downtown Springfield home to offer congratulations.

So it’s not like there weren’t ties between Juarez and Lincoln. It becomes a matter of Quinn aides knowing their history that they were able to make the connection and stage the event that will make Quinn seem more aware.

AND THE FACT that officials from the Dominican Republic and Colombia took part expanded it beyond a merely-Mexican event, although I’m sure Quinn will now try to find ways to reach out to the Puerto Rican community (which does comprise the other third of Chicago’s Latino population).

RAUNER: Who would he honor?

It certainly is a better response by Quinn than that nonsensical (and Internet-only) ad the guv gave us Thursday that compared Rauner to “Mr. Burns” of “The Simpsons.”

Now as to Juarez’ birthday, how will Rauner retort? Is there a financier with Illinois ties whom Rauner can praise?

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