Welcome to the big award ceremony!
You know the Oscars and the Emmys, now here’ are the Dummys. The Dummy Award is given out for the dumbest and downright stupid things people do.
And boy, do we have some nominees doing some ridiculous things.
Our first Dummy Award goes to Army private Travis King, the soldier who sprinted into North Korea to get better treatment in North Korea than in the U.S.
Can we get a big, “Yeah, right!”
He was in a minor fight and was being sent back to America to be calmly discharged to his family and nice life.
But now he is going to be dragged out and tortured in a North Korean prison. Here’s your award Travis, we’ll hand it to you through the bars of your cell.
Our next Dummy Award is presented to Texas Governor Greg Babbitt and his border patrol officers.
These upstanding officers waded into the Rio Grande River and, according to the Guardian News, July 18, 2023, “Pushed children into the Rio Grande and denied immigrants water.” The temperature was 100 degrees.
They shoved men, women and children back into the river, and a few children drowned. Here’s your Dummy Award, officers, hope you’re real proud.
Our next Dummy goes to Robert Kennedy Jr., who is running for president.
He’s the son of Robert Kennedy, also sharing the genes of his uncle, President John F. Kennedy. You’d think he would have some sense and a little class, but no.
He’s an antivaxer who, most insanely, said that “COVID is a Chinese bioweapon designed by the Chinese to attack Caucasians and black people.” Sounds reasonable, if you’re totally nuts.
The question is, how did this crackpot get close enough to a microphone to make a statement like this? His dad, Robert Kennedy, is shaking his head in Heaven.
The next award goes to Florida Governor Ronald DeSantis. He is supporting Florida schools, promoting a false,white-washed view of slavery.
Now students in Florida will be taught that slaves benefited from slavery by learning skills for future employment. Slavery was like a big training program.
Believing there was something good about slavery eases the guilt of it, and also does something sinister. It’s the conservatives’ version of denying the Holocaust, except they’re denying the evils of slavery. It’s the same idea.
There’s nothing beneficial about getting whipped and picking cotton.
Thank you for attending the 2023 Dummy Awards ceremony. Before the curtain closes we would like to say this award is important because if we don’t expose bad behavior and falsehoods they will be accepted as normal.
Things like saying slavery was good, global warming is a hoax, election results are false, and vaccines cause COVID, will be taken as fact. When lies are believed as true we are lost.
See you next year when more Dummy Awards will be given out, you can count on it.
Dennis Gregory writes a bi-monthly column for West Hawaii Today and welcomes your comments at makewavess@yahoo.com