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It Feels So Good When You Quit Hitting Me!
Will Farmers Return to Trump When China Reopens?
Malcolm X had a riff in his civil rights equivalent of a stump speech that is invading my head like a non-musical ear worm as I read the news about a peace, an armistice, a something-or-other interrupting the trade war between this country and China.
I was a youngster at the time and was reading about Mr. X rather than hearing him, and I did not know that a “stump speech” was the shorthand repeat that candidates do of their ideas, or that somebody not a candidate might have one. I call him “Mr. X” meaning respect rather than disrespect, because it would be inappropriate for me to call him “Malcolm” even if I accounted for how my attitude toward him changed as he changed.
He would be assassinated before I got out of the military, but at the time I was reading about him he was still in the mode of denouncing incrementalism. I admired MLK and I admired the Constitution and at the time I had little patience for opinions that appeared contemptuous of either.
According to Fake News, Mr. X suggested that I suppose somebody stuck a knife in my gut. When the perpetrator removed the knife, should I be grateful? If somebody with authority allowed the assault to happen, but then rescued me, should I be grateful?
