One of--the few--good things of getting older is that sometimes, when all circuits are working, a memory rises to consciousness that puts current historical events in perspective. In this case, the recollection dates back approximately seventy years. My grandfather had bought in 1949 an RCA TV console. The right half of this rather larger piece of furniture supported the miserably small TV screen, while the left half displayed a 78 rpm record player. Compared to what's available today, the screen might remind one of a postage stamp; it enabled us, however, to transcend the humdrum of Jersey City while we watched in amazement black-and-white little creatures with names like Lucille Ball, Sid Caesar, Betty White, Gail Storm, Ethel Waters, etc. etc.
Sometimes the mostly cheery chiaroscuro had a dark content. I remember one news segment that covered an event at the beginning of the Cold War. Czechoslovakia had recently been "overrun" by Communists. I recall the face of a hapless middle-aged man--who, as I recall, was Jewish--on trial for being a spy. The prosecutor--or, at least now I assume it was the prosecutor--was yelling at him. I still remember the face of the poor man, whose white face and bald skull shone luminously through the salt-and-pepper darkness. It was the face of a dead man.
The announcer informed us that this was a segment from what he called a Show Trial; the Communists were conducting judicial farces in Eastern Europe, putting on trial those whose fates were sealed from the very beginning. Who on earth could believe that these had anything to do with justice?
It was scary. I don't know what thoughts I had beyond that, but, later on, when I recalled the clip on occasion, I felt a patriotic consolation: At least that could never happen here.
With great sadness, I now write that it has indeed happened here.
This time, unlike the doomed Czech, the shameless man on trial wasn't innocent. Another shameless man, who unabashedly and dishonestly wielded near-absolute power, has merrickgarlanded us once again.
A striking difference between 1949 Czechoslovakia and 2020 U.S.A.: We can still vote the apparatchiks out of office. Will we?
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