Neil Steinberg! Words that People Say Really Matter, Because They Often Match What People Believe And Do.

 

    The darkness drops again but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming

 Obviously, you want Obama elected — the nation will soon realize what it has done, the pendulum will swing the other way — your way. At long last! Ausgerechnet jetzt!
Persuasive stuff. But if I know you — and I do — about now you’re asking yourself: “Hey, wait a second. This guy’s a Jew. Why would a Jew be looking out for the best interest of the Iron Fist of Righteous White Anger, Mount Greenwood Corps?” Neil Steinberg Chicago Sun Times 2009

The immediate snotty crack above followed a series of Sun Times columns by other like-minded writers who hate cops and white Catholics in general that spouted pretty much the same lie. I live in Morgan Park which, like Mount Greenwood, gets grouped in a collective that the media call Beverly or the political landscape of the 19th Ward - home to largely white Catholic, government employees, teachers, nurses, tradesmen, some well-to-do folks, cops and fireman. Many black Americans live very well in this neighborhood as well. I used to meet black gents like Doc and Stewart up at Keegan's Pub having a drink and  a horse-laugh with their paler hued neighbors. Now, Keegan's  is Barney Callaghan's and a younger crowd attend the same salons. However, when I read Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun Times (without paying for either mind you), one might think that folks spent  all of  their time chasing Eliza over the ice flow on the Ohio River, as the poor child attempts to find the Underground High Speed Railroad. Nope.

Well, Monday was Halloween!  A very nice time for kids and their parents.

Trick, or Treat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   Note there is no question.  The implied meaning Treats without your windows getting soaped, your front porch egged, or worse. The tricks have gone the way of merry at Christmas time.

We still love Christmas, Hanukkah, or Yule tide, but the concept of being merry in our age could get a some poor slob locked up and wearing a Velcro dinner jacket on the fourth floor of the local hospital,

I glanced at the Sun Times this morning and saw that Neil Steinberg had a scold for people Neil deems stupid - anyone not Neil Steinberg.

He echoes William Butler Yeats's dismissal of 'polite, meaningless words'

People just say stuff.
Such as “How are you?” when they couldn’t care less how you are. And “I’m fine” when they’re not. It’s expected, the grease that society slides forward on. Hardly worth noting.
When it comes to politics, however, this just-say-stuff habit is more worrisome. Then the grease can send our nation skidding off of a cliff of toxic nonsense and paranoid fantasy. Politicians make promises that they can’t possibly deliver. They air claims that can’t possibly be true, that directly conflict what they just said a day or two ago. And their followers, well, follow, saying things they neither mean nor think about.

Yeats meant what he said about the people he met and knew before they 'changed; changed utterly' by British firing squads.  They were the same people, only dead and honored for their deaths in 1916.


Several days ago, Steinberg wrote a piece that was standard if you back Trump you are a racist Cro Magnon, honeyed with William Butler Yeats.

As terrible as the election of 2016 is, it is also only the beginning. Clinton might win — I hold out hope she will win, unless of course she doesn’t. But that won’t be the end. Somewhere, a sharper, slicker, more disciplined, more palatable version of Donald Trump — Donald 2.0 — is being assembled. Some Marco Rubio-caliber fraud is staring hard at himself in the mirror, liking what he sees, and cooing, “Next time, it’s your turn baby!” The rough beast awakes and slouches toward 2020 to be born.

I used to read and like Neil Steinberg.  Then I learned that his words did not match the guy. Where I come from, that is a problem.  Neil might have been well-served taking a graduate course in regular folks.  But, back to the nub. Neil is on a Yeats kick.

He and so many 'journalists, politicians, anchorpersons, bankers, oligarchs, academics and  hacks are worried that Trump might win on November 8th - I don't worry, nor do I believe that he will get by stacked decks.  Steinberg says stuff all of the time and he believes it.  He hates Trump and the people voting for him with the same passion as he hated people for not worshipping at Obama's 2008 Greek Temple. He goes Orewellian Big Brother on them with great regularity.

 

  Then, Neil decides to really gin-up the Two Minutes Hate on the specific people who might back Trump and nail us good:

Such as? Abortion. “Abortion is murder,” the anti-abortion crowd claims. You hear it all the time. First, that’s incorrect. Since murder is a legal term, and abortion is legal and thus it is by definition not murder. What they mean is “Abortion should be murder.” Except they don’t mean that either, as you can demonstrate by replying, “Oh really? If it’s murder, then for how long should the murderers go to jail?” And the answer is “umm.” We can translate that grunt as “OK ‘abortion is murder,’ is just something we say because it sounds powerful and more compact than, ‘I want to force my religion on you while dragging gender roles back to the 1950s.'” Admittedly quite a mouthful.

Quite a mouthful.  You know what they say about people who talk with their mouths full?

Two words - Nuremberg Laws, numb nuts.

Nuremberg Laws and Roe v. Wade. Hitler murdered Jews and Planned Parenthood murders babies.  See, nothing on my teeth and gums.

Words matter and people mean what they say, even if they use Yeats.

Neil went through a Dante period that was equally shallow in 2008-'09. During his Inferno Days,  Neil had lunch at Kens on Western Ave. around the time when Mr. Steinberg's conduct brought public humiliation on him and his tenure as an employee, much less a columnist was doubtful.  Blood under the bridge.  No one forgets a kindness like a guy who believes that he is Emile Zola.   I took Neil Steinberg to Jackie Casto's Ken's on Western Ave. for lunch, where the talented word-sculptor chatted with a thick number of folks who live here, including cops, fireman, school teachers. the Mayor of Evergreen Park, two writers from Beverly Review and a number of Leo Alums who had attended the Veterans Observance.

Generally, when one breaks bread with another person some kind of bond of mutual grace and respect surfaces - not so with too many columnists.  A few months later, Neil smeared the people he lunched with to make a snotty crack about the stupid people who did not vote for and worship Obama in 2009.

Hell, I didn't vote for Obama in 2008, or 2012, because I firmly the believe the man has limited mental capacities - he has yet to disappoint me as our first Ted Baxter President.

I say, "Good Morning,: because I mean that I hope everyone including Neil Steinberg has a very good morning.

Neil Steinberg is a semiotic totalitarian - he and his circle know what meaning is and they will tell us.  He gets caught up in all of that clever Jacques Derrida deconstructionism that journalists employ to white-out events, words, deeds and meanings. Poetry works for semiotic totalitarians.  Me and the neighbors tend to be prosaic.

When I say " Get the @#$% off my porch,"  I don't mean come on in and set a spell.