Wednesday, November 30, 2016

In Praise Of Florence Henderson

Acting is a funny profession, in a lot of ways.  Unless you get into the producing end of show business, you don't get to pick your jobs.  Your jobs, on the other hand, get to pick you.  And, in the process, they define and limit your ability to perform every bit as much as they may make you both rich and famous.  Sometimes, it's not even about talent.  It's just about finding a role in which you resonate for audiences more than you do in anything else.  The history of acting is filled with examples of this; Eugene O'Neill build an entire play, "Long Day's Journey Into Night," around his father's financial success in one role, and how that success crippled him as an artist.

Of Florence Henderson, it could almost be said that she was born too late.  She began her career on Broadway, which offered her roles that maximized her singing ability, but did so at a time when Broadway was beginning a slow and painful decline in audiences and artistic merit.  Like a lot of performers in the same position, she ended up in Hollywood and on television.  And, as a result, she found the role in which she resonated for a large audience:  Carol Brady, the matriarch of a blended family in "The Brady Bunch."

If you've ever watched the show, you know that no one would mistake it for Great Ideas of Western Thought.  At the same time, if you watched it, and were yourself part of a blended family, you found solace in seeing on TV a family that was just like yours, but also treated blended families as "real" families.  Since the show was on the air, I became part of a blended family, and have come to appreciate what "The Brady Bunch" did for a lot of children in my generation.

Florence Henderson did a lot to make the Brady family real, while still finding opportunities to sing. Her talent wasn't thwarted, but re-directed in an unexpected way.  And, as a result (and thanks to reruns), that talent is still making a difference.  She was one of the lucky ones in finding that type of success as an actor, but she worked hard to deserve it, too.

RIP, Florence.  Carol will continue to to a good job of showcasing who you were, and who you always will be to the Brady families around the world.

A Modest Proposal For Ross Douthat

Good old Ross Douthat, conservative columnist for the New York Times, one of the very few legacy media outlets that actually still practices journalism, instead of the never-ending search for click-bait. Bad enough that he joined the hoards of his colleagues in going from Never Trump to hey-a-win-for-my-side-is-always-good-and-maybe-the-office-will-change-him.  (Note:  The office does not change the office holder; in fact, history shows that the reverse is almost always true.)  Now, he joins almost everyone else in political media by saying, as he does here, that the Republican Party is so great that America needs two of them.  Freedom of choice!  As long as I get my way!

To be fair, he mostly offers some mushy thoughts about "moving toward the center"--wherever that is these days.  We've moved so far to the right that democracy is about to fall off the edge.  We've got an incoming Administration that, from the looks of its appointees, are prepared to make the same mistakes of yesterday, confident that the results will look different (Paging the definition of insanity: the Trump transition people are spitting at you.)  We've got young people in the streets, scared to death about their futures, and all they get are lectures to calm down from the I've-got-mine crowd. And, of course, we've got the Washington give-him-a-chance-this-screaming-through-Twitter-thing-might-be-just-what-democracy-needs crowd (if you overlook his armed-to-the-teeth supporters, that is).

Truth to tell, Ross, a party that won the popular vote in both the presidential and Senate races actually shouldn't need all that much policy retooling.  But I'll ask you for a favor.

If we agree to take a look at your suggestions, can you do something about the gerrymandering, dark fundraising, and voter suppression on your side?  You see, I don't think we need two of the same party.  I think we just need a level playing field for the parties we've got.

Manufacturing, Wages, And Welfare: How To Flip Red States

I saved this article from the New York Times a while ago, because I disagreed with its premise, and wanted to explain why at what I sensed would be the right time.  In the post-election climate, the time seems to be now.

My point was going to be (and still is) that manufacturing is an essential component of national security.  A country that can't rely on its own factories to build its defense structure is not a safe country.  We import key components of that structure from outside the U.S., including not-so-friendly nations like China.  From a military perspective, this is a clear conflict of interest, because (as recent events have shown) history is far from over.  It's easy to visualize today's military suppliers as tomorrow's enemy combatants.  In such a situation, we may be defeated before we have even begun to fight.

That's reason enough to have a national policy promoting manufacturing.  The 35-year economic and social tragedy of the Rust Belt is another.  Hillary Clinton was unjustly accused of ignoring the needs of workers in this region; this proves otherwise. Had the corporate press spent a little less time on her e-mail server, and a little more time on the substance of her approach to this issue versus Donald Trump's (which amounts to little more than grandstanding), we might not be agonizing about the awful choices Trump is making in filling out his Administration.

What people in the Rust Belt need is not a self-promotional loudmouth, but practical ideas to get back on their feet.  Telling millennials to move there is not the answer--they'll just join the ranks of the underemployed.  Better they should organize via the Internet to work with people and promote good public policy, like the $15-per-hour minimum wage.  This idea found success on election night and, in fact, it looks like they are already taking me up on this suggestion.  Good for them!

And, while we're at it, and waiting for good policy to produce good jobs, can we please reform welfare reform, so that the money goes to people and not to tax breaks for GOP donors?  Is that too much to ask?

Manufacturing, wages, and welfare:  these can be the three keys to unlock the door to a very different Election Night than the one through which we just suffered.

An Unsurprising Headline About Guns

Calvin Coolidge has been quoted for saying that, when more and more people are out of work, unemployment results.  By somewhat similar reasoning, when more and more people own guns, gun violence results.  Which is why this headline should be about as surprising as the news that, today, the sun rose in the east and will sink in the west.

Over the past three weeks, I have often found myself thinking that what bothers me most about the presidential election's outcome is not as much the idea of Donald Trump as president as the empowerment of white nationalists in our larger culture as a consequence of his victory.  People on the left are rightly expressing their fear on line and in the streets--and, in unbelievable blame-the-victim style, are being lectured on the need to chill out and wait for bad things to actually happen before they get up.

The expressions of fear are, in part, a form of mourning, and, to borrow a phrase, telling people how to mourn is tantamount to telling them how to pray.  But, beyond that, the fear is far from imaginary. In the past few decades, conservative victories have been followed by spikes in violence. People in Oklahoma City can tell you all about it.  So can Gabby Giffords.  And when incidents like this, this, and this--and the creation of this--occur, they have every reason to fear that the dumpster fire for our democracy has already been started.

We cannot let the rise of white nationalism become normalized.  That's why I will not use the phrase "alt-right"; I will look the phenomenon in the eye and call it what it actually is.  And all of us need to be vigilant, even hyper-vigilant, when it comes to preventing acts of assault (and worse) and/or stopping them when they occur.  And, regardless of the election's outcome, we all need to work, and fight, for common-sense gun regulation that faces a harsh reality  easy access to guns is easy access to murder.

All Politics Is Identity Politics

A great deal has been said, and no doubt will continue to be said, about "identity politics" as the source of the Democratic disaster in this year's election.  In fact, it has been expanded from an explanation for the election's outcome into a general critique of the Democratic Party, and especially the so-called corporate wing of the party:  that it's big on promoting the individual rights of its demographic components (e.g., marriage equality, immigration reform, equal opportunity for women in the workplace), and willing to neglect components that might threaten the pockets of its corporate donors (principally, unions).

As a critique, it's not entirely unfair.  The problem with the fact that both of the country's major political parties depending heavily on corporate money (in the GOP's case, almost entirely on it) is that, effectively, you end up with two economic Republican Parties.  That's why both parties had to deal with major populist revolts this year:  decades of neglecting the needs of what we used to call blue-collar workers finally caught up with the political system.  And the only reason this is surprising at all is the fact that, by and large, our major sources of news are every bit as corporate in their vision and thinking as are the donor and political classes.

But what exactly do we really mean, in the first instance, when we talk about identity politics?  We are accustomed to using the term in connection with every major (and a few minor) demographic classification of our society.  Except one.

White male Christians.

Historically, our culture does not specifically identify white male Christians as an "interest group." They are not identified as a subsegment of society needing special attention; by the value system that has prevailed in America (and around the world) for hundreds of years, they are society.  They are at the top of the hierarchical pyramid, organizing political and economic activity and, through culture and religion, defining our most fundamental believes.  And always doing so by the subjugation of anyone who isn't a white male Christian; not accidentally, but purposefully, without actually admitting the nature of what they are doing (tyranny), or the means by which it is accomplished (force).

As this author in the New York Times explains, in American society, white has always defined itself in opposition to people of color, thereby making "white" the unconscious default assumption for what constitutes a human being in America.  But that process isn't limited by skin color, as I am pointing out here, it is also defined by gender and religion (and, as a component of the latter, sexual orientation).

It is only because whites in general are becoming an American minority that they are finally beginning to appreciate what should have been obvious all along: that we have been practicing identity politics from the very beginning.  We have pretended that only white people are "people," and that, within that framework, white male Christians are a higher order of people simply for possessing those demographic characteristics.  It's actually written into our Constitution (Article I, section 2, clause 3); no one with any intellectual or personal integrity can pretend that we have not been practicing identity politics all along.  The faces of our Presidents, all by themselves, tell this story as well.  Forty-two white men.  One black man.  All of them Christian.

It's probably impossible to escape the reality that all politics is identity politics.  Politics is ultimately about the affairs of the people, however it may be practiced.  But what we desperately need, especially now, is to view identity in terms of issues, and not in terms of so-called "immutable" personal characteristics, such as demographic categories.  As time passes, demographic majorities become minorities, and vice versa.  Even property ownership is hardly immutable; land becomes exhausted, factories close as technologies become outdated, and people's needs change, thereby putting whole industries out of business.

If today's problem is joblessness, or low incomes, or college affordability, or the availability to access health care, then let's work across and outside of are demographic zones to solve them.  All of these are problems whose impact respects no particular set of demographics.  All of these are problems big enough, and complicated enough, to require the resources and ingenuity of all of us. Like it or not, all of us are stuck with each other, and all of us have an impact on one another.  We might as well acknowledge that fact, and start to make it work for us.

And, given the truth that climate change effects not only the entire human race, but the planet itself, I suggest that our new "identity politics" be defined by a single term:  life.  All of us share it. And all of us will be dead without it.  And, if we truly care about it enough, we'd better get our ourselves, and our traditional prejudices, and fight as hard as we can to preserve it.

Sunday, November 27, 2016

End The Meddling, And End The Embargo (Or, What We Really Need To Understand About Post-Castro Cuba)

It's annoying to have to make a point regarding the obvious, but I'll start this post by doing so anyway, in part to ward off the simple-minded attacks from the simple-minded.  And, of course, because it needs to be said any way.

Fidel Castro was a brutal dictator.  You could write that statement on the world's biggest blackboard, thousands and thousands of times, a la Bart Simpson, and it wouldn't even begin to capture the brutality of life under the Maximum Leader.  And his death neither undoes nor forgives any of that; it does not, in all probability, even begin to bring closure to the friends and families of his many victims.  One can only hope and pray that whatever government that follows Castro will, at the very least, refrain from perpetuating the violence and death that characterized much of his time in power.

And make no mistake:  there will be changes.  Castro's government was always more of a personality cult than an ideological crusade.  He alternated between using Communism and capitalism as means of keeping the support of the Cuban people and staying in power for decades. The personality is now gone; his brother, Raoul, does not have even the smallest fraction of what it takes to replicate that personality's impact.  And, thanks to the increase in commerce and tourism between Cuba and other Western countries (including the United States, Cubans have already begun to expect, and will continue to expect, better lives for themselves than they got out of the central-planning economics that remains the Soviet Union's main legacy to Cuba.

But what about the United States' legacy to Cuba, especially as Donald Trump prepares to take over from Barack Obama?

Without support from a Republican Congress, Obama did what he could within the limits of his existing authority to re-open relations between the U.S. and Cuba, which ended when Castro took power.  He re-established diplomatic relations between the two countries, and expanded opportunities to travel between the two countries.  But he could not end the economic embargo against trade with Cuba without congressional approval.  And, if there is one thing Republicans in Congress have made clear over the past eight years, it is that their raison d'etre during that time is to deny any victories to the first African-American president in our history.

That's a pity.  But not for Barack Obama.  He leaves office with his popularity on the way up; had he been able to run for a third term, there is little if any reason to doubt that he would have won it. (You can blame the Republicans for that one, too, of course.)  It is, however, an epic tragedy for the Cuban people--and the most recent example of American meddling in their lives.

You can read about that history of meddling here.  What you should learn from reviewing it is the fact that, from the administration of Thomas Jefferson onward, American governments have treated Cuba as a plaything, a toy to be used to advance our nation's military and financial interests at the expense of the interests of Cubans.  Right-wingers have, by and large, done an effective job of suppressing that history.  Unfortunately for them, Cubans have long memories beyond the reach of Breitbart and Fox News.

Ever wondered why someone as brutal as Castro stayed in power, decade after decade, through 11 different Presidencies?  Was it the advancements in literacy and medical care?  Was it the presence of Soviet military support and trade?  Those things made a difference, but what really made a difference is the fact that Castro, at every possible opportunity, told the Cuban people that he and his government was the only thing standing in the way of Yankee meddling.  Castro was the enemy of average Cubans, but he made sure they knew that America thought of him as its enemy.  And so, the enemy of the greater enemy was their friend.

And that is why a return to Cold War levels of relations with Cuba will only keep in power either the current government, or one equally committed to anti-Americanism.  Whatever shape that government ultimately takes, it will not be friendly to the U.S., no matter who occupies the Oval Office.

Which is why, instead of making such a return, we need to go in the opposite direction.  We need to not only maintain the current level of relations, but build upon it, by ending the embargo.

Ending the embargo, without otherwise attempting to influence the political decisions that Cubans need to make about their future government, is the only way to end decades of meddling while still maintaining a voice in the process, via cultural and economic exchanges.  It was the same basic process of detente that began the end of the Cold War.  If that process could re-ignite democracy an entire hemisphere away, think of how much more powerful it can be when the distance is reduced to 90 miles.

The embargo, as a policy, is and has been a miserable failure for decades.  It has done nothing to dent Castro's popularity; if anything, he turned it into a propaganda tool.  The fools who have supported the maintenance of the embargo are the same right-wing fools who brought you the Cuban Missile Crisis, and damn nearly the end of the world, through the Bay of Pigs invasion, the continued deployment of outdated anti-Soviet missiles in Cuba, and the push during the crisis to bomb the Soviet missiles with B-52s.  Yes, Kennedy went along with the first two mistakes, but the lessons he learned from doing so stopped him from listening any further to bad right-wing advice.

It's time to follow Kennedy's example.  Maybe Trump will do this, since he has announced his intention to be a President and a real-estate developer at the same time.  Cuba is ripe for more tourist-related development.  Perhaps his hotel-and-casino instincts will override the need for Republicans to keep the Cuban vote in South Florida.  Perhaps not.  He has flip-flopped on so much between the election and now that, just on that basis, he belongs on a beach.  G-d knows I'd rather see him on a beach than in the White House.

But, since he's going to be in the White House, we should all hope and pray that he does what is right for both America and Cuba.  End the embargo, and give Cuba a chance to chart her own destiny, while still allowing us to have a place on board her.

Sunday, November 20, 2016

Never Trump? Not When There's Power To Be Had!

I recognize that it may be hard to remember the world before Election Day; I can assure you that it feels like an eternity ago to me.  But I do remember, more than vaguely, that a number of opinion writers in both the Republican Party and the conservative movement were openly and loudly a part of what was called the "Never Trump" movement, a movement that objected to Trump's campaign on the ground that, in both form and substance, it offended conservative principles and brought shame on a party attempting to reach out to the broadest possible number of Americans.

Well, that was then and, for the Republicans, this is victoriously now.  Jeepers creepers, but it's amazing how stumbling into control of the federal government can make you say, well, principles and outreach be damned.

Bill Kristol?  John Podhoretz?  Ross Douthat?  George F. briefing-book-thief Will?  Check, check, check, and check.  All of them formerly ready to spew Trump out of their mouths, and now all too anxious to suck up to him.  Will, in particular, has been especially two-faced about it, still-half heartedly talking the President-elect down but very eager to give him advice about what this nation needs most--like reviving the Keystone XL pipeline project.  George, for real?  This was yesterday's battle, and the rest of the nation has moved on from it.  What's next?  Impeaching Earl Warren? Unleashing Chiang Kai-shek?  On the other hand, if you want to see a seriously brazen 180-degree turn on The Donald, take a look at Charles Krauthammer's latest.

This is why I appreciate Jennifer Rubin's willingness to stick to her guns and still call out Trump with the vehemence she expressed before the election.  And, even now, she may not be alone.

Let's hope that there are more conservatives like them, who are truly prepared to put America first. And, as liberals but even more as Americans, let's be prepared to join them.

Senator McCONnell Enables The Con Artist

In my previous, post-election summary post, I described Donald Trump as a trust-funded con artist. Among his many marks are Rust Belt voters who, rather than adapting to the 21st century, keep electing Republicans while praying that the economy of the nineteenth century will make a comeback.

Those voters are especially numerous among the coal miners of Kentucky, and the members of the families that depend on them.  And one of the best enablers of Trump's con-act campaign was someone who, appropriately, has the word "con" in his name:  Senate Majority Leader (from Kentucky) Mitch McCONnell.

For months prior to the election, McCONnell took advantage of every opportunity he had to publicly pretend that President Obama's environmental policies were systematically destroying the coal industry, including jobs in Kentucky.  Trump, for his part, piggybacked on McCONnell's lies by promising to undo those policies and unleash coal mine owners so that money would start coming out of the miners' ears.

But now, of course, the election is over, so it's safe to tell the truth:  that the coal industry's decline is all about automation and competition from alternative energy sources.  You can read about the end of the dissembling here, while reading at the same time about McCONnell's comfort with more or less admitting that he dissembled.  You can also read here and here about how the decline in coal has nothing to do with Obama or the Democrats.

Sorry, coal miners.  You've been played by the man who's going to "Make America Great Again," and by his fellow con artist, the senior senator from Kentucky.  Time to start changing your voting habits, and elect progressives who will invest in the jobs of the future.  Coal isn't coming back.  And we can all breath easier as a result.

Cursing The Darkness, While Lighting A Candle

Well, when I spent the past several months praying for a Democratic blowout, this was definitely not what I had in mind.

Where to begin?

I have spent the past 12 days since the unthinkable became a reality, sorting through every aspect of it.  I have worked through a variety of emotions--disbelief, anger, despair--trying to figure out the best way to respond.  If I were inclined to make a totally selfish decision, I think that I would just pack up my most cherished possessions and head for the hills, getting myself as far away as possible from the Republican police state likely to be terrorizing us all after January 20.

I can't do that.  I have a family--a wife, two children, two children-in-law, and two grandchildren. One of those grandchildren may very well have her life (I repeat:  her life) threatened by the repeal of Obamacare that may now become a reality.  I have clients, some of whom will be facing a future far more uncertain than mine; after all, I am not in danger of being removed to a country I have never lived in.  I have a number of charitable interests I am happy to help support, especially with regard to historic preservation.  Most of all, I am a citizen of a great nation whose greatness is currently being threatened by people with a misbegotten concept of what makes it great.

For a few fleeting moments, I even gave some thought to giving up on this blog, not being certain of whether or not continuing it is the best way I can respond to the present emergency we face. Frankly, I'm still not certain.  But, until circumstances dictate that I shift my sails in another direction, TRH will keep going.  And, no matter how circumstances do or do not change, so will I.

So, with that as prologue, let's try to unpack what happened on November 8, and during the days that have followed.

Actually, I want to go back before that for a moment.

From the moment Donald Trump descended the escalator at Trump Tower to announce his candidacy, to the improbable and nauseating events of Election Night, I was convinced beyond any doubt that his candidacy, like everything else he does, was simply a promotional stunt to promote his "brand," i.e., himself.  He's not a businessperson.  He's a trust-funded con-artist.  And con artists are always on the lookout for new "marks."  What better con than a presidential campaign, to go after all of the "marks" in this country at once.

We need not doubt the truth of this any longer.  Thanks, New York Daily News.   So, there we have it: a President-elect who never intended to become President, trapped by a combination of his arrogant miscalculation and the need that all conservatives have to never, ever admit to a mistake or a miscalculation.

Of course, that's not the only thing that landed Trump in the White House (assuming that he moves there, which is not a guaranteed proposition).

He was voted into office by white voters who equate the loss of industrial jobs with the rise of a more multicultural society, and mistakenly blame the former for the latter because believing a seductive lie is easier than facing hard truths and working to overcome them.  In the old days, when jobs disappeared in one part of the country, people moved to places where jobs could be found. Now, they sit around in states that receive more from the federal government than they give, moaning about how things used to be.  And when politicians with money equates job losses with diversity, and voters reward them with votes, they expose what motivates them more than economic necessity: racism.  Take a look.  Then, take another.  And yet another.  And still one more.

Perhaps more devastatingly, take a look at this.  The bigots are openly celebrating their victory.  As well as this.  The Germans know what a Third Reich looks like.

And what about the voters on the other side of the ideological fence?

Turnout was lower than many had expected and I had hoped, which goes a long way toward explaining why Democrats did so badly across the board.  Some have blamed a failure on the part of Obama-loving millennials to turn out on behalf of his Secretary of State, and party nominees generally. Personally, I don't believe they "failed."  I think that many of them, and other pro-Democratic constituencies, were blocked by the epidemic of voting restrictions enacted by local Republican officials across the county.  And that wasn't the only way by which the vote was manipulated.  Paul Krugman does a very effective job of unpacking the manipulation here.  The Russians, the FBI, and the media all collaborated to produce the second Presidential election in the past 16 years in which the winner of the popular vote (by a margin of 1.5 million votes and counting).

And when Krugman mentions the media, note that he includes the so-called "mainstream" legacy media of print and broadcast outlets.  As someone who grew up respecting the role of what we used to call "the Fourth Estate" in producing the Pentagon Papers and exposing the Watergate scandal, the legacy media's role in this election is disgraceful beyond belief.  These outlets no longer see themselves as acting in the public interest.  Since the days of Reagan, they have functioned more and more as profit centers, which goes a long way toward explaining why the line between "news" and entertainment is as blurred as it is now.  And they are always denounced as being "liberal," meaning that they actually sometimes tell the truth about both liberals and conservatives.

As a consequence of all of this, the legacy media totally rolled over for Trump.  Nothing Trump could do would make its coverage anything but constant and uncritical.  Hidden tax returns?  Sexual assault?  Defrauded contractors?  Not even the abuse of one of their own by Trump, based on a disability, could make print and broadcast sycophants do anything but follow his every move. Every time I see this, I feel like I need to take a long hot disinfecting shower.  It should have knocked him out of the race on the spot.  Instead, it became a TV staple, as well as an Internet one.

So, here we are, weeks away from seeing a trust-funded con artist get sworn in as the 45th President of the United States.  What to do?

This much is certain.  I will resist, and encourage you to resist, the legacy media's siren call to "move on," to "give him a chance," to "put the campaign behind us."  This is not a campaign you can bury under any rug.  It was far too filled with dirt for that.  Trump went out of his way to run the ugliest campaign in the history of the Republic for an office he neither wanted nor expected to win. He owns that ugliness, and the fear that it has engendered among many for whose lives he will now be responsible.  Then too, there's that little nagging voice in the back of my head, the one that reminds me of what happened the last time we gave a President the blind faith that the media told us to give him.  We ended up in Iraq based on a lie, and Americans are still suffering as a consequence of that lie.

Ignore the voices that tell you that there's a great big beautiful tomorrow to be had in trying to find common ground with a banana Republican, like this one.  There is no common ground to be had; even Trump's infrastructure proposals are little more than glorified privatization of existing assets. And don't spend any time hand-wringing about Democratic mistakes, as far too many are doing (here, for example, or here.  Nothing in the polls provided any evidence of these "mistakes" in advance.  And Hillary won the damn popular vote!  There is nothing that proves how much the legacy media is in the pockets of corporations than post-election lectures about how America needs two Republican parties.  America doesn't need less of what Democrats advocate; it needs more of it.

So, take a look at Harry Reid's advice.  Better yet, take a look at Michael Moore's advice.  Or Mark Joseph Stern's, for that matter.  Or the words of The Daily Kos.  Perhaps, above all, hear the words of the President with regard to the man who's about to replace him, and understand that this was no ordinary election, with no ordinary outcome.  There are no Kum ba yah moments to be had here, folks.  If you are troubled at all by what Donald Trump is and the potential damage he could cause to the rule of law in greatest nation on earth, if you can see that he has already emboldened our enemies and troubled our friends, if you can appreciate the harm he could do to some of the most vulnerable members of our society, then you and I have only one option:

STAND AND FIGHT LIKE HELL!

It's the only way to light a candle in the darkness that is now enveloping us.  And to thereby make sure that this guy isn't right.

Saturday, November 5, 2016

Wait A Minute, New York Post!

I just read this article.  And, frankly, I'm confused.

The article in question describes, in some detail, the impact that the soon-to-be-opened Second Avenue subway line in New York is having on the surrounding real estate.

To be more precise, the positive impact.  In new tenants.  And new projects.

But here's why I'm confused.

Not to put too fine a point on this, but the Second Avenue subway project is, of course, an example of big-government spending.  Really, really. really big-government spending. 

And it seems to be having a positive effect.  Yes, even in expensive, over-taxed, over-unionized New York.

Don't you see the irony in all of this?

Conservatives are supposed to hate all government spending (except on defense projects). Government spending supposedly reduces private investment, raises taxes, promotes indolence, and otherwise leads to all sorts of deadly sins.  Yet here is an article, in a conservative newspaper, that promotes the ability of government spending to give a major economic boost to an underutilized portion of the City.

And it's a mass transit project, no less.  Conservatives hate these kinds of projects.  Maryland's newly-minted Republican Governor, Larry Hogan, took great pains to kill off a $2 billion public transit project for the city of Baltimore.  He's with the program:  tell people that government projects don't work, even when they do.  (Hogan's mentor, Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, adopted the same approach when he took office; it hasn't worked out so well for him since then).

Get back on the ball, Posties.  Go back to suppressing the truth.  It may yet help you hold on to power.  For a little while, anyway.

Speaking Of Destruction From Within ...

... let's take a look at the state of Israel.  It was founded in its contemporary form in 1948, with the partition of what had been the British-controlled territory of Palestine.  The vision of its founders was this:  the modern Israeli state, in the wake of the Holocaust, would become a homeland for everyone of the Jewish faith, with all degrees of observance to be respected and permitted.  That vision is what has given Israel its strength as a nation, both internally and externally.  In particular, that vision is what has motivated American Jews to give Israel their unwavering support for decades. And that vision is what has enabled Israel to survive crisis after crisis for decades.

But, almost on cue, that vision began to die with the end of the Cold War.  Enter, stage right (extremely right) an influx of largely ultra-Orthodox refugees from the former Soviet Republics and Warsaw Pact nations.  Subsequently entering from extreme stage right, Benjamin Netanyahu, the current Prime Minister of Israel.

Like his conservative counterparts in this country, Netanyahu cares only about power, and is willing to wrap his inherently anti-democratic approach to governance in fate-of-the-nation-is-at-stake rhetoric in order to appeal to fear.  And it works to keep him in power, in part because the Israelis are surrounded by nations who would be happy to see it and its people destroyed.  But it mainly works because Israel's population is now dominated by people who are not accustomed to true democratic rule.  They have never had a chance to see the pre-Netanyahu Israel, where both liberal and conservative leaders, as well as secular and religious ones, built their triumphs on the strength of hope, and not fear.

And like his conservative counterparts in this country, Netanyahu practices divide-and-conquer politics, rewarding his supporters and punishing his opponents.  Take a look (note:  may require a subscription).

It's time to revisit the terms under which U.S. aid to Israel is provided.  We need to make it clear that Americans want the original vision of Israel honored, not Netanyahu's.  Only then will Israel have real reason to replace fear with hope.

"No Great Nation Is Ever Conquered Until It Has Destroyed Itself"

The words in that headline were written by historians Will and Ariel Durant in "The Life of Greece," the second volume of their multi-volume series "The Story of Civilization."  History is replete with examples that testify to the truth of that observation--for example, the Roman Empire, which had itself swallowed up the ancient Greek states and the culture they created, adapting Greek architecture and mythology for its own purposes.  Then Rome, too, collapsed, a victim of such self-inflicted wounds as imperial overstretch and corrupt leadership, but also a victim of the rise of new cultural influences such as the Christian religion, and Germanic and Slavic tribes from the East.

Sound vaguely familiar?

We are very much in the position that the late Roman Empire found itself in.  Our military escapades have quadrupled our public debt.  Our ability to absorb the ideas and energy of new peoples and cultures seems tapped out, with such people being viewed as mortal enemies that must be walled out or removed, perhaps by "any means necessary."

And then, there are the corrupt leaders.  Boy, have we learned a lot about that as a result of the last-minute attempt to stop a potential Democratic blowout on Election Day by flogging the so-called Hillary e-mail "scandal" back to life.

Just look at what we've been witness to:

A corrupt FBI director, who may be something of a Manchurian figure himself, called out by an official of the previous Administration;

A corrupt House committee chair, who abused his position for partisan purposes;

And the former "America's Mayor," who unintentionally (perhaps) revealed this week how little he cares about anything except power.

But nothing, and I mean ABSOLUTELY nothing, sums it up best than the headline below from the Washington Post, as well as the accompanying article:
Republicans are now vowing Total War. And the consequences could be immense.

A corrupt FBI.  A corrupt Republican Presidential campaign.  A corrupt Republican Congress. Corrupt Republican leadership at the state level.  And actual threats of violence against the Democratic Presidential nominee, a woman.  The words "worse than Watergate" don't even begin to capture the badness of all of this.

We may not be collapsing from within; we may, in fact, have already collapsed.  Say hello to the next President of the United States--Vladimir Putin.  He gets Alaska back for Russia, and 49 other states in the bargain.

But maybe not.

If even a conservative Republican like Jim Sensenbrenner can co-sponsor legislation to strengthen the Voting Rights Act, there may be some hope.

If a poll is correct in suggesting that the majority of the American people are sick and tired of GOP manipulation, there may be some hope.

Ultimately, however, the truth is this.

There is no hope without you.  And your willingness to show up at the polls.

To those of you who have already done so, congratulations and thanks.  To the rest of you, well, you have a country to save.  You have an opportunity this week to prove that we are not the next Greece or Rome.  At least, not yet.

I shouldn't even have to say it, but I'll do so anyway:

VOTE ON NOVEMBER 8TH!