Which means the question to be decided in the next four years is whether Trump can deliver on the veritable plethora<\/a> of promises made in his recent campaigns. (First for the Republican nomination, then for the presidency itself.) <\/em>Or<\/strong><\/em> whether those promises are merely “negotiable\u00a0campaign devices<\/a>.*\u201d And that’s where Alice\u2019s Restaurant<\/a> comes in. \u00a0For one thing, the full title of the song refers to the “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree<\/em><\/strong>,” and as Wikipedia noted:<\/p>\n The term “massacree<\/a>,” used by Guthrie[,] is a colloquialism originating in the Ozark Mountains<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>that describes “an event so<\/strong> wildly and improbably and baroquely messed up that the results are almost impossible to believe<\/strong>.” \u00a0It is a corruption of the word massacre<\/a><\/i>\u00a0…\u00a0but carries a much lighter and more sarcastic connotation, never being used to describe anything involving actual death.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In turn that phrase – “so wildly and improbably and baroquely messed up that the results are almost impossible to believe<\/strong>“<\/em> – perfectly describes the election we just went through.<\/p>\n [A]sked whether he had ever been convicted of a crime, Guthrie mentioned the littering incident, and learned that incident was bureaucratically indistinguishable from a violent felony<\/strong>… \u00a0In Guthrie’s words, they wanted “to know if I’m moral enough to join the Army – burn women, kids, houses and villages – after bein’ a litterbug.” \u00a0(E.A.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Or as I noted before, in that song “Arlo Guthrie turned a patently absurd situation into a timeless classic.” \u00a0Which brings us back to the challenges raised by a Trump presidency.\u00a0To many this last election presents many Americans with a “patently absurd situation.” \u00a0But it could also present both a challenge and an opportunity. Or in the immortal words of Joe Biden<\/a>\u00a0(at left)<\/em>:<\/p>\n “Calling it an opportunity is a little like saying: \u00a0‘I’ve been dropped in the water that is shark-infested. \u00a0But you know, it’s an opportunity. \u00a0If I make it to shore, I will set a world’s record. \u00a0No one has ever done this before.”*<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So if – on the morning after this last election – you started to feel like the next four years will be something like swimming in shark-infested waters, remember this: \u00a0It’s an opportunity!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n But we digress… \u00a0We were talking about the Alice’s Restaurant Massacree and other such\u00a0blasts from the past<\/a>. Which brings up another point that I made in Alice \u2026 Revisited<\/a>,\u00a0that for many folks \u2013 those<\/span> good old days<\/em> weren\u2019t so good. <\/span>Or – to put it another way – there always seems to be a significant segment of Americans who keep wanting to drag us back into the past. \u00a0And that’s true even though for many people, “those good old days<\/em><\/strong> weren\u2019t so good.”<\/p>\n So it seems to me the slogan “Make America Great Again” carries an implied proviso: “That is, ‘great’ for the people who did<\/em><\/strong> have it made back in the good old days.” But just for kicks, how about this slogan instead: \u00a0Make America Better!\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n As in, make America better for all those people who didn’t<\/em><\/strong> have it so good back in those “good old days.” \u00a0Or for that matter, those people who don’t have it so good right now. \u00a0And how about working to Make America Better<\/em> by fulfilling that promise on the\u00a0Statue Of Liberty<\/a>:<\/p>\n “Give me your tired, your poor,\u00a0<\/em><\/span>Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free… \u00a0<\/em><\/span>Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,\u00a0<\/span>I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n What a radical idea. Like that “love [even] your enemy” thing Jesus said in Matthew 5:44<\/a>…<\/p>\n * \u00a0 * \u00a0 * \u00a0 *<\/p>\n The original post had an upper image \u2013 used in Alice … Revisited<\/a>\u00a0\u2013<\/em> courtesy of courtesy of Liberal group claims Mitt Romney, Dick Cheney, Donald Trump, others are draft dodgers<\/a>.<\/em><\/em>\u00a0\u201cNote\u201d also that an asterisk in the main text indicates a statement supported by a reference detailed in these \u201cnotes.\u201d Thus, as to Trump’s promises being negotiable or campaign devices<\/a>, see\u00a0Before taking office, Trump signals campaign promises are negotiable<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em><\/b>All the Campaign Promises Donald Trump Has Broken in the Last 24 Hours<\/a>, and\/or\u00a0Trump backs away from some of his strident campaign promises<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The Joe Biden quote is courtesy of\u00a0Ethan Bronner<\/a>‘s book,\u00a0Battle for Justice: \u00a0How the [Robert] Bork Nomination Shook America<\/a>\u00a0(1989), Anchor Books edition,\u00a0<\/span>at page 211.<\/em><\/p>\n * \u00a0 * \u00a0 * \u00a0 *<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" * \u00a0 * \u00a0 * \u00a0 * November 26, 2016 – Last December I posted Alice\u2019s Restaurant \u2013 Revisited. It described a Thanksgiving tradition I started back in 1993. Listening – every Thanksgiving – to the full 18 minutes and 34 seconds of Alice\u2019s Restaurant. (The \u201cmusical monologue by singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie,\u201d released in 1967.) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5616"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5616"}],"version-history":[{"count":66,"href":"http:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21557,"href":"http:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5616\/revisions\/21557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/d\/d1\/Student_Vietnam_War_protesters.JPG\")
But getting back to the song itself: \u00a0“Alice’s Restaurant” described the\u00a0Kafkaesque<\/a>\u00a0way that Guthrie managed to avoid\u00a0the Draft<\/a>\u00a0– illustrated at right – in 1965. \u00a0Briefly, he was rejected because he’d been convicted of littering on Thanksgiving Day. \u00a0There followed his encounter with the “surreal bureaucracy at the New York City<\/a> induction center at 39 Whitehall Street<\/a>:”<\/p>\n\n