Have you seen The Mandalorian? It’s a Star Wars derivative. SciFi, the story centers on a warrior-class of helmeted people whose mantra or motto is “This is the way.” The members live by a strict code that requires them never to remove their helmets when someone else is present. [Yeah! I know. How do they get their hair cut or, for the men, shave, and for the women, shampoo and condition? Well, some things remain unsaid or un-acted, just as when I was a kid going to black-and-white movies for 75 cents—for a double feature, mind you—I never saw anyone go to the bathroom on film, a never-performed but always assumed process that the characters, whether human or alien, had to do sometime, and a process that seems to necessary in almost every film or TV series today almost as though directors think they have to make up for past omissions and hidden truths]
Wow! Sorry for that digression, but I’m wondering today, April 4, 2023, whether or not this isn’t a day to make up for past omissions. I certainly know that the Mandalorians’ mantra is key to the political world. We can watch the story unfold like some episodic fictional tale that removes us from the daily realities we cannot avoid like going to the bathroom, for instance. Today is the day that a former President will be arraigned in New York, destined to face a bevy of political opponents who seem obsessed with what has become “The Way.” They wear the armor of their party, and none appear to say, “Wait a minute! Is this truly 'our way'? No one removes the helmet. Rather, they chant, “This is The Way.”
In looking back, I can envision that I was naive at the time I saw those black-and-white movies with my cousins and friends on Saturday mornings. In the back of my mind I knew that the characters on screen had to go into the bathroom sometime, but seeing the bathroom, its apparatus, and the act of going to the bathroom was hidden like the unexplored recesses of a Mandalorian Cave. I realize now that the politicians then were much like the politicians now, some honest, some corrupt, but all of them at some time having to go “into the cave,” the recesses hidden from the public, where they could conduct business out of sight. Politicians intent on using the power of the government against the citizenry, mostly for their own gain, have always peopled the real political world. And though their faces were visible in public when I was a child just as politicians’ faces are now visible, what they and their minions did then, like what politicians now do, is helmeted, hidden from public view. Think of some Lois Lerner or Peter Strozk, both alleged to have worked behind the scenes in the caves of government agencies like the IRS and FBI for political purposes, carrying on a tradition much like the Armorer and Mandalorians’ leader who forges in the darkness of a cave the protective and impenetrable steel for the like-minded warriors. This is, after all, The Way. Today one party, tomorrow, the other. As in the sagas of Star Wars, the New Republic and the Empire vie for power, the pendulum of that power swinging ineluctably. This is The Way of both the fictional and the real universe. Those who follow today’s “way” will inevitably have to face those who follow tomorrow’s “way."
I suppose we could in all honesty say that such a “way” is normal in politics. Recall President Nixon’s using his political power and the unflinching loyalty of his minions to surreptitiously break into the Watergate offices of his political opponents. Recall Clinton’s IRS “coincidentally” auditing an ordinary guy who dared to ask a hard question at a town hall gathering. Recall Obama’s spying on a Fox news reporter his administration thought was adversarial, and, I’d ask you to recall the fictional “Russian collusion” that led to two impeachments, and note the clan-like loyalty of Democrats that seems so evident on this April 4. This is, after all, The Way.
And I’m reminded that like the Mandalorians’ adherence to a code that is centered on “The Way,” so during this April and the week of Easter, there are more than a billion people who also follow and adhere to “The Way.” Note the similarity to the Christian appellation for Christ as “The Way, the Truth, and the Life.” Yes, the Mandalorians have a religion, and it seems that the politicians also have a religion. Why else would the members of one party vote exclusively in one “way”? Why else would the followers of one party seem to rejoice in the triumph of arresting their political enemy, at least their supposed political enemy? This is, after all, The Way. No one dares to take off the helmet for fear of ostracism by the clan.
The problem with any “Way” is that there is always some opposing way. And no clan, no matter how armored it believes itself to be, is invulnerable. Those who follow today’s “Way” might find, as I suppose the fictional clan of Mandalore found in their having to leave their planet, that they are vulnerable to displacement and to direct attacks. As has occurred repeatedly in American politics, those thought to be dead have arisen again. This is, after all, the political way. So, today, apparently, behind their helmets the members of one clan rejoice in the triumph of their way, but tomorrow is another day. And that, I can assure you, is “The Way.”
This is the way.
Wow! Sorry for that digression, but I’m wondering today, April 4, 2023, whether or not this isn’t a day to make up for past omissions. I certainly know that the Mandalorians’ mantra is key to the political world. We can watch the story unfold like some episodic fictional tale that removes us from the daily realities we cannot avoid like going to the bathroom, for instance. Today is the day that a former President will be arraigned in New York, destined to face a bevy of political opponents who seem obsessed with what has become “The Way.” They wear the armor of their party, and none appear to say, “Wait a minute! Is this truly 'our way'? No one removes the helmet. Rather, they chant, “This is The Way.”
In looking back, I can envision that I was naive at the time I saw those black-and-white movies with my cousins and friends on Saturday mornings. In the back of my mind I knew that the characters on screen had to go into the bathroom sometime, but seeing the bathroom, its apparatus, and the act of going to the bathroom was hidden like the unexplored recesses of a Mandalorian Cave. I realize now that the politicians then were much like the politicians now, some honest, some corrupt, but all of them at some time having to go “into the cave,” the recesses hidden from the public, where they could conduct business out of sight. Politicians intent on using the power of the government against the citizenry, mostly for their own gain, have always peopled the real political world. And though their faces were visible in public when I was a child just as politicians’ faces are now visible, what they and their minions did then, like what politicians now do, is helmeted, hidden from public view. Think of some Lois Lerner or Peter Strozk, both alleged to have worked behind the scenes in the caves of government agencies like the IRS and FBI for political purposes, carrying on a tradition much like the Armorer and Mandalorians’ leader who forges in the darkness of a cave the protective and impenetrable steel for the like-minded warriors. This is, after all, The Way. Today one party, tomorrow, the other. As in the sagas of Star Wars, the New Republic and the Empire vie for power, the pendulum of that power swinging ineluctably. This is The Way of both the fictional and the real universe. Those who follow today’s “way” will inevitably have to face those who follow tomorrow’s “way."
I suppose we could in all honesty say that such a “way” is normal in politics. Recall President Nixon’s using his political power and the unflinching loyalty of his minions to surreptitiously break into the Watergate offices of his political opponents. Recall Clinton’s IRS “coincidentally” auditing an ordinary guy who dared to ask a hard question at a town hall gathering. Recall Obama’s spying on a Fox news reporter his administration thought was adversarial, and, I’d ask you to recall the fictional “Russian collusion” that led to two impeachments, and note the clan-like loyalty of Democrats that seems so evident on this April 4. This is, after all, The Way.
And I’m reminded that like the Mandalorians’ adherence to a code that is centered on “The Way,” so during this April and the week of Easter, there are more than a billion people who also follow and adhere to “The Way.” Note the similarity to the Christian appellation for Christ as “The Way, the Truth, and the Life.” Yes, the Mandalorians have a religion, and it seems that the politicians also have a religion. Why else would the members of one party vote exclusively in one “way”? Why else would the followers of one party seem to rejoice in the triumph of arresting their political enemy, at least their supposed political enemy? This is, after all, The Way. No one dares to take off the helmet for fear of ostracism by the clan.
The problem with any “Way” is that there is always some opposing way. And no clan, no matter how armored it believes itself to be, is invulnerable. Those who follow today’s “Way” might find, as I suppose the fictional clan of Mandalore found in their having to leave their planet, that they are vulnerable to displacement and to direct attacks. As has occurred repeatedly in American politics, those thought to be dead have arisen again. This is, after all, the political way. So, today, apparently, behind their helmets the members of one clan rejoice in the triumph of their way, but tomorrow is another day. And that, I can assure you, is “The Way.”
This is the way.
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