The Big Picture

By GLYNN WILSON

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The longer we live and the more changes we see in the world, it’s hard to know who to turn to for wisdom on social media these days: Heraclitus, Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr — or Snoop Dogg.

From your reading back in the 20th century, before the explosion of the internet changed all our lives forever, you may recall what Greek Philosopher Heraclitus said some 2500 years ago: “There is nothing permanent except change.”

Or you may recall what French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr said in 1849: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” or “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

These days in the 21st century with social media taking over so much of peoples’ lives, Greek and French philosophy may seem quaint and outdated. So who are we to turn to for wisdom?

Considering the newfound fame of pimp, blunt head and gangster rapper Snoop Dogg, who was reportedly getting paid $500,000 a day plus expenses by NBC for comic skits and commentary at the Summer Olympics in Paris, perhaps he is smarter and works harder than anyone knows. Or maybe he just has a great agent.

Whatever. I’m thinking maybe we should listen to him, and that includes the Kamala Harris-Tim Walz campaign for president. If he’s not already on the schedule for the Democratic Convention in Chicago, why not?

“You’ve got to always go back in time if you want to move forward,” Snoop once said, according to Brainy Quotes online.

That’s exactly how I feel today writing this column exclusively for The Progressive Populist newspaper. It’s like taking a trip back in time to write an 800-word column for a print newspaper. I’ve been breaking news on the web so long now I wasn’t sure I could do it when I talked to editor Jim Cullen about making an appearance again in these pages.

Just so you will know, Cullen used to run some of my stories and columns back in the blogging era, back when the Bush Justice Department was helping the Republicans in Alabama take over all three branches of state government — the Supreme Court, the Legislature and the Governor’s office — by putting popular Democratic former Gov. Don Siegelman on trial and in federal prison. I spent five years of my life covering that story for my own new web publication then, The Locust Fork News-Journal.

I went independent on the web in 2005 when newspapers first started experiencing serious financial difficulties after spending several years in the South covering news for The New York Times, The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor and The Nation magazine, among other publications in those last heady days for free-lance journalism in America.

But after covering the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and labor news and politics for several years, with union sponsors, I grew tired of the losing battles in my home state, as well as the growing global warming heat in the South.

All my life and career I had been interested in spending time learning Washington and covering politics in, D.C. So I moved my aging mom in Birmingham into a retirement community, put the house on the market, and basically moved to the nation’s capital in a media camper van practicing mobile journalism. It was also my retirement plan, a way to travel and see more of the country and write as well as photograph some beautiful places, especially national parks.

This summer my new publication the New American Journal @NewAmericanJournal.net surpassed a million hits a month again in our 10th year in business. But in June, dreading the Biden-Trump rematch as well as the growing heat and humidity in Washington, I got out and headed for the cooler, higher elevations of the Catoctin Mountains in Maryland and Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.

I also spent some time on an organic vegetable farm, and considered buying property in Maryland myself to retire and start a farm of my own. Journalism and politics seemed nearly dead. Everyone seemed worried that Donald Trump was on the verge of making a comeback to retake the White House in the fall.

This is not something I wanted to see or live through. I felt burned out, ready to embrace part of a Timothy Leary slogan from the 1960s, only I changed it a little: “Turn on, tune out, drop out.”

But then, in late July, Heraclitus’ thinking came back into play over the weekend while I was camping in the Owens Creek Campground in Catoctin Mountain (National) Park right down the street from Camp David, where Joe Biden’s team had fouled up the debate prep to take on Trump in Atlanta on CNN.

President Biden made the fateful decision to step aside after the halting debate performance, perhaps due to all the pressure to do so from Democrats and even what seemed like the entire staff of The New York Times, which seemed to go on a holy crusade to pressure Biden to end his campaign and endorse his Vice President.

So I announced a heroic return from retirement on the farm to cover one more campaign. It may be my last, but hopefully Kamala Harris will turn out to be the game changer we need.

My best advice: Don’t ignore the social power of an influencer like Snoop Dogg. Taylor Swift will be there too, in Chicago, to fire up the women.

But don’t forget how Hillary Clinton basically lost to Trump in 2016. It was Black males in cities and suburbs like Philadelphia, Detroit, Minneapolis and Atlanta who fell for Trump’s big, rich, reality show and pro-wrestling fake news appeal back then and voted for him instead of the Democrat. Some of those voters along with some White males and union types came back to support Joe in 2020. It will take a creative coalition to stop Trump in November, 2024.

Come on Snoop Dogg.

Glynn Wilson is editor and publisher of New American Journal (NewAmericanJournal.net)

From The Progressive Populist, September 1, 2024

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