tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7796238577646067652024-03-06T01:10:52.907-08:00The Rhino's Horn"It's easy to say 'Someone should do something about this.' It's a whole lot more important to be 'Someone.'"
--MeStephen Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04248740872885333114noreply@blogger.comBlogger2582125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-779623857764606765.post-63716188130843058202023-04-29T15:08:00.002-07:002023-04-29T15:09:41.354-07:00The Rhino Is Taking A Pause<p><span style="font-size: medium;">At the end of last year, I told you that I might be making some changes in the publication schedule of this blog. Well, with a mixture of resignation, satisfaction, and hope for the future, I have decided to do exactly that.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Effective with the publication of this post, THR is going on hiatus for the next six months.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And, quite possibly, for more than that.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I alluded to this in <a href="https://therhinoshorn.blogspot.com/2022/12/a-few-parting-2022-thoughts.html">my last 2022 post</a>, and referred to the fact that I have launched a production company, one that has optioned a new play, which in turn had a reading this past February at Theatre West in Los Angeles. The reading was a big success, and I am now working with my playwright and director on the first steps toward mounting a full-scale production, currently planned to take place in Los Angeles as well.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">As I do so, however, I have developed an increasing amount of respect for the amount of work involved in mounting a production of even a small show like this one. And, if I'm going to do this right--in other words, if I am going to do it the way I've tried to do everything in my life--I'm going to have to find more time in which to do it. Something has had to go.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And that something, for now, is THR.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The thought of doing this has in fact been very painful for me. A part of me has always wanted to be a columnist, and the advent of the Internet and blogging has give me along with countless others a way to do it. I used to feel, politically, like a voice in the wilderness during the '80s and '90s, as well as the first few years of this century. But, in the past two decades, I have seen the explosive growth of progressive politics, as well as the ways by which the Web has made that growth possible. I know that I leave behind a world of electronic commentary filled with views much like my own, and far often more eloquent and more informed than my own. It feels good to have been a tiny part of that for the past 14-plus years, and, while part of me wishes I could continue to be a part of it, I know that I am, for now, making the right decision.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Might I come back? Who knows? Part of what will determine that is the future of my producing ambitions. Part of it may be the shape of politics. We live in highly uncertain times, and circumstances may lead me to drop in here from time to time and speak my mind. My Twitter account, to which my blog is linked, is not going away in any case, no matter what Musk does to Twitter, so I can promise I will not be completely silent. And too, in connection with my producing work, I will be launching a newsletter at some point, and as many of you who want to be on the mailing list for that will be more than welcome. There won't, of course, be any political commentary in it, and, in fact, my only regret with THR is that it didn't always have the diversity of subjects I'd originally planned for it. Perhaps the newsletter will help make up for it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">To anyone and everyone who has read my posts, there are truly no words that adequately express my appreciation for you. Thanks for being part of this experience. It has meant more to me than you can know.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Whatever else you take away from reading my words, please remember that democracy is very much of a participatory sport. The rewards go to those who get involved and stay involved. We live in times that demand maximum involvement, for the sake of the present and the future. Look for ways to stay involved. And above all, STAY INVOLVED, no matter what the present looks like. The world belongs to those who are strong enough to take and rise above whatever it dishes out.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I hope and pray, with all my heart, that all you have and will keep that strength.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">G-d bless you.</span></p>Stephen Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04248740872885333114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-779623857764606765.post-31596125251597821992023-04-29T14:16:00.000-07:002023-04-29T14:16:14.331-07:00Red States Are The Ones That Need their Credit Cards Cut Up<p><span style="font-size: medium;">I don't have to remind you that Washington right now is consumed by a "fight" that the barely Republican House of Representatives has decided to pick with President Biden and the Democrats over raising the legal limit for the amount of money the federal government is allowed to borrow.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I don't have to remind you, although some of you may have forgotten, that raising said limit was never a "fight" during the years that Republicans controlled both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, not even after they rammed into law a trillions-of-dollars tax cut for the 1%, a tax cut that left said trillions sitting either offshore or in corporate treasuries, and not "trickling down" to the rest of us. (Side note: I've always appreciated the honesty of using the word "trickle" instead of, let's say, "gush." It's a reminder that Republican policies are engineered to give them the goldmine, and everyone else the shaft.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I shouldn't have to remind you that the "fight" is, for all practical purposes, an attempt to weaponize for purely partisan purposes the full faith and credit of the United States, which (as of right now) is being propped up by our allies and trading partners, both of whom rely on us for their own political and financial stability, as we rely on them for ours. Nor should I have to remind you that their purpose in doing so is to create economic chaos at a level that will propel them <i>back </i>into control of both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, so that they can continue to replace constitutional government with a kleptocracy. On the other hand, it's worth making the effort to make sure that all of you have been warned.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But I think it's both fair and essential to make absolutely certain that <i>everyone </i>understand fully that the media some-people-say-but-others-say "debate" about the raising the federal "debt ceiling" is something of a sideshow that, by design or otherwise, distracts all of us from the real fiscal problem facing us.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And it is simply this: far too many of the United States talk a much better game of fiscal probity than the one that they actually play. And, like it or not, the principal offenders are red states, the ones that pay lip service to balanced budgeting while using money from people they hate to balance their budgets.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I could use the specific circumstances of almost any one of these states to make my point about this. But, since it's been in the news recently, and because it used to be a launching pad for the national careers of Democrats, I think I'll take the case of Arkansas as my Exhibit A.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Actually, Arkansas could be used as Exhibit A for another political problem, and one that is bipartisan in nature, the rampant nepotism that pervades American politics. It's always been there, of course, and, once in a long while, it has a chance of doing something of value, as the Cuban Missile Crisis illustrated. But, more often than not, it changes things for the worse, and that certainly seems to be the case with Sarah Huckabee Sanders.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">You may recall Sanders as the combatively dishonest "press secretary" (one of several, in fact, but perhaps the best-know one) for Donald Trump during the four years that he disgraced the Oval Office. Sanders did her fair share of disgracing her office as well. But that should not be completely surprising, considering the fact that she got the job solely because she is the daughter of Mike Huckabee, himself a former governor of Arkansas. But that is the new career pathway that has been created by the GQP in the age of autocracy it has launched: when you fail in one job for which you were not qualified, fail upward in another, and make sure your children get the exact same opportunity. And so the voters lather, rinse, and repeat all of us into perpetual failure; it just makes it easier for Republicans to scream "The system is rotten, but our opponents are even worse!"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And so it was with Sanders; with almost breathtaking speed, she went from failing in the White House press office to the governor's mansion formerly occupied by her father, where she now threatens to continue her track record of incompetence. If anything illustrates the reality that the old American ideal of learning the ropes by working your way up them has vanished, this surely does.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I mention all of this in part because nepotism and mooching go hand-in-hand; both are forms of corruption, and the presence of one form is enough to breed others. And mooching is definitely what goes on in red-state government--mooching, that is, off of federal revenue produced by the more productive policies practiced in blue states.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">That Democratic policies in blue states produce more tax revenue for the entire nation that the Republican policies is beyond any doubt. Certainly that is the case when The Wall Street Journal is willing to document it. For decades, the Journal has, in its own stoic, slightly snotty way, defended the indefensible aspects of conservative economics without any regard to reality. That has been no less true since it was purchased by Mr. Fox News himself, Rupert Murdoch, who has done more than anyone to destroy honest journalism in our nation. But <a href="https://twitter.com/asclepiasyriaca/status/1645529052680167427?s=43&t=XW2AIuEEAypF9MKHfEiY7w">here it is</a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Well, Murdoch may be willing to admit it, but you'll never hear it from the likes of Sarah Huckabee Sanders. What you will get instead is fatuous claptrap about so-called "small government" like this gem: "As long as I am your governor, the meddling hand of big government creeping down from Washington DC will be stopped cold at the Mississippi River."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Maybe not, if that hand is stuff with cold, hard cash that Arkansas needs to balance its budget, hand out a tax break it couldn't otherwise afford, AND provide the state's residence disaster relief that might enable them to make use of the tax break in the first instance.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">For starters, she has already promised a combination of tax cutting and spending that, without the federal money that Biden's policies are pumping into state budgets, will be <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/sarah-huckabee-sanders-arkansas-governor-campaign-spending-1782817">utterly unsustainable</a>. This, by the way, would be a side effect of the utterly inhumane budget bill that Barely Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy has whipped his barely-majority into passing by a solitary vote. In the enormously unlikely event that the bill becomes the actual federal budget, red state governors like Sanders can kiss their own cut-and-spend plans goodbye.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And it gets worse.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In addition to the infrastructure and green initiatives signed into law by Biden, Arkansas and many other states need federal relief from the series of storms that have hit them. In fact, Washington has been taking care of 75% of the bills for relief, a fact that Sanders has readily acknowledged. Unfortunately, she has done so in the context of a demand that it take care of <i>100% </i>of that cost.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">That's right. Go away, meddling hand. But make absolutely certain that you leave behind you as much of that crispy cash from blue states as you possibly can. It's a mindset that brings to mind the complaints that '60s era conservatives had about student protests against "the system," despite the fact that the student protests were financed in part by the willingness of their parents (i.e., part of "the system") to pay for tuition, room and board.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Believe it or not, back in the day, I had some sympathy for that point of view, not the least of which because I was one of those students (although I went to college in the '70s). But that just makes me that much more comfortable about calling out the hypocrisy of red-state leaders who, in the immortal words of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, "vote no and take the dough." Sanders is hardly alone. Just look at the track record of Florida Governor and presidential hopeful <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/9/29/2125979/-DeSantis-is-happy-to-receive-emergency-aid-that-he-callously-voted-to-deny-Hurricane-Sandy-victims">Ron DeSantis</a>. And, while you're at it, pray that he never becomes President DeSantis.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In the context of the current House hypocrisy on the subject of federal spending, one often hears about the need to cut up the government credit card. But maybe we're talking about the wrong credit card. Maybe the card that we need to cut up are the cards that belong to red state governments, the latter-day equivalents of those '60 college students. Maybe what we should be doing is giving them incentives to take the log out of their own eyes before the complain about splinters in the eyes of blue states. (That New Testament reference seems appropriate, since so many red-staters aspire to the practice of Christianity.) Maybe, just maybe, at the extreme end of those incentives, we consider the possibility that these states are essentially bankrupt, and that they require a federal takeover to get their finances straightened out. Maybe even a demotion to territorial status, temporarily.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I'm not advocating these things. But I think they're a useful way of illustrating a point. We're supposed to be the United States of America. We're all expected to pull our weight. And some states are far too comfortable with not doing their fair share, even while they point their hypocritical fingers at the states that are not only pulling their own weight, but the weight of their critics. You want to root out immorality in American government? Well, how about starting <b>right there</b>?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Like I said, corruption breeds more corruption. And if you've bought into the bill of goods the GQP sells that government is always corrupt and Wall Street is always squeaky clean, you're part of the problem. Corruption doesn't have to exist. Freeloading doesn't have to exist. Nepotism doesn't have to exist. Because the people selling all of these poisons live in fear of democracy's antidote: the people, rising up and demanding their birthright: a freer and better world.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Rise up, already. Demand more from red and blue states. Demand more from yourselves. Demand the better worlds that those who came before us suffered and died for. We owe it to them. We owe it to ourselves.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And, like the Preamble to the Constitution says, we owe it to our posterity. Our children, and their future. We can still give them a better world than the one we inherited. Let's not throw that chance away.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Let's pick it up and make the most of it. Now, tomorrow, and always.</span></p>Stephen Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04248740872885333114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-779623857764606765.post-48635217128583023942023-04-29T11:08:00.000-07:002023-04-29T11:08:47.155-07:00Karma For Trump, Karma For MAGAhats?<p><span style="font-size: medium;">Over three decades ago, when Donald Trump still had as much chance of becoming President of the United States as most of us have, he launched his career as a spokesperson for "law and order" with a full-page ad in The New York Times. The ad piggybacked on a tragedy in Manhattan involving an assault on a jogger in Central Park, for which five young Black men were accused of, and ultimately convicted for, a crime they did not commit. They were ultimately exonerated by DNA evidence, but not before serving time; when they were released, they sued for and received damages from New York City.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">At the time of the attack, however, the City was going through a horrendous crime wave, one that was severe enough to raise questions not just about its safety, but also its ability to function as a unit of government. Trump being Trump, and perhaps even at that point having some nascent idea about a career in politics, he saw an opportunity for publicity and public acclaim.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And he pounced.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">With the above-referenced Times ad, headlined in doomsday type as follows: "BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY. BRING BACK OUR POLICE!" It went on in even worse fashion, building up to in the verbal violence that is his stock-in-trade: "CIVIL LIBERTIES END WHEN AN ATTACK ON OUR SAFETY BEGINS!"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In fact, that is precisely the moment when civil liberties become as precious as possible. Civil liberties exist to ensure justice for all, because justice for some is no justice at all. Justice for some is what makes crime "easier" to control when the victim belongs to a politically favored group, and the accused belong to an unfavored one. Justice for some is what allows the system to run like clockwork to produce a popular outcome, but one with no connection to fairness or the truth. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Perhaps worst of all for the "law and order" advocates, justice for some stands solely on its ability to remain in power, an accomplishment no government, no empire, no leader or leaders have ever been able to maintain indefinitely. And when power changes hands, the new leaders, often risen from the ranks of the former oppressed, have no clear reason to stand for something other than justice for some.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Sometimes, though, we all get lucky. Sometimes, a member of the oppressed has the character to rise above the oppression. Sometimes, justice delayed really isn't justice denied, and the victims of systemic injustice get a second chance, one to which they respond not with revenge, but with the heart and soul of reformers. Sometimes, when they get a second chance, we all get a chance to see justice for all.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">That seems to be the case with Yusef Salaam, a member of the group of Black men who made up the accused cohort that became immortalized in tabloid print and and airwave coverage as the "Central Park Five." Salaam, now well into middle age and running for a seat on the City Council, saw an opportunity to turn the tables on his one-time accuser when Trump was indicted by the Manhattan district attorney's office for falsifying business records in connection with his hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And he did so brilliantly.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">He used social media to publish <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/5/2162282/-Exonerated-Central-Park-Five-member-runs-full-page-ad-in-NYTimes-mimicking-Trump-s-1989-stunt?detail=emaildkre&pm_source=DKRE&pm_medium=email">an ad of his own</a>, one that mimicked the format and some of the tone that Trump used in his ad, to publish a very different response to the the ex-President's legal jeopardy. Instead of asking for Trump's execution, as well as a suspension of his civil liberties to speed his way toward that destination, Salaam merely asked for the system to work as the Constitution designed it to work--and that Trump, regardless of the outcome, accept the justice it produces with the same grace and resilience that Salaam and his friends accepted their unjust punishment and their exoneration.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Trump, of course, will never do that. Even in the event that he is exonerated, he will spend the rest of his life whining about the unfairness of his having to face justice at all, that all of his conduct (even the illegal conduct) was "perfect," and that he will spend the rest of his life seeking revenge against the system he has already done so much to poison. He will also continue to fundraise off of the experience, in a desperate attempt to salvage whatever might be left of his political career, to say nothing of whatever might be left of his debt-ridden business empire. Worst of all, he will never lack for an army of suckers to help him fundraise, because it's easier for them to simply believe in Trump than it is to face their own shortcomings and fix their lives.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Frankly, though they would rather die than admit it, the members of that army could take a lesson from Salaam's ad, as well as Salaam's life.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">He and the other members of the "Exonerated Five" had to face far worse than many of Trump's very white, largely male supporters have had to face in their lives. They had their reputations and then-future prospects destroyed in the most public way possible. They had to spend time in prison. They were force to fight for their freedom and the restoration of their reputations. And they were forced to do all of this fighting against a system that, in so many ways, has historically been and still is wired against them because of the color of their skin.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And, as Salaam's ad illustrates, they prevailed.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Racism is a sinkhole that is easy to jump into, and difficult to get out of. The Exonerated Five did not jump into that sinkhole. The MAGAhats have spend most if not all of their lives wallowing in it, again, because it's easier to believe in white identity politics than it is to face the truth about one's individual circumstances and fight back</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Trump and his family have lived their entire lives in that sinkhole, profiting mightily off of it. But karma has finally caught up with them, just as it threatens to do the same for other people who would rather die that face the fact that we are, however slowly and haltingly, moving toward a world in which how we look will no longer automatically punch a ticket to how we live.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">You don't like what karma is doing for Trump? You'd better take a harder look at what you believe and why you believe it. And then consider how much more someone like Yusef Salaam can teach you.</span></p>Stephen Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04248740872885333114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-779623857764606765.post-36243768992579820372023-03-31T19:17:00.000-07:002023-03-31T19:17:03.678-07:00A Few Words For Tucker Carlson<p><span style="font-size: medium;">As few as possible, considering the fact that Tucker Carlson is the object of them. But it also applies to all of his partners in journalistic crime at Fox, and otherwise in the employ of Rupert Murdoch. All of the mouthpieces dedicated to lying and spewing hate at the expense of the Constitution that protects <i>everyone's </i>freedom of speech. Even theirs.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Shut up.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">SHUT. THE. F***. UP.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">At least when it comes to incendiary garbage like <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-indictment-fox-news-hosts-predict-violence_n_64270922e4b01284198d3027">this</a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">We are now in political and legal waters that are alternately bracing and terrifying. We all need to take a deep breath, and resist the temptation to trouble those waters for the sake of short-term self-gain.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Because what is now going on with Donald Trump and the State of New York is bigger than all of us. If it becomes an opportunity for those who live for violence to act out their worst fantasies, it may bring us, our nation, and our heritage crashing down around all of us. Never to be recovered or repaired.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Let the process play out. Criticize who and what you will. But don't encourage protests that end at the barrel of a gun.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">You have enough blood on your hands already.</span></p>Stephen Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04248740872885333114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-779623857764606765.post-5384615511140478142023-03-18T18:54:00.133-07:002023-03-19T14:41:13.655-07:00In Praise Of Women<p><span style="font-size: medium;">That title, as all Sondheim fans know, comes from the title of a song in "A Little Night Music," in which the song's lyrics offer praise undermined with wry commentary on the reasons for offering it. But that's not my purpose today. I write this to offer genuine praise for women, and specifically for three women, two of whom have had a profound effect in my life, and one who had a profound effect on the lives of all of us.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">That may not, in and of itself, sound overly political. But THR has never been strictly about politics, and especially not when it's appropriate for me to comment on the passing of someone who has had a major, special impact on my life, whether a public figure like <a href="https://therhinoshorn.blogspot.com/search?q=Sondheim">Sondheim</a>, or a private one like <a href="https://therhinoshorn.blogspot.com/search?q=Lillian">my mother</a>. Besides, historically, and up through the moments in which I'm typing this, to be a woman has been to be the relentless focus of all forms of politics. And, right now, after more than sixty years in which women thought that they were making progress on leveling the gender playing field, they are finding themselves the subject and the object of political oppression. Which makes it all the more important to tell the stories of women, and the impact that they have had in our lives. And this burden should fall all the more heavily on men, who have for far too long had an interest in suppressing those stories.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And I'm happy to do my part. So here we go.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The first woman is Melissa Borgerding, a new playwright with whom I'm working to produce a wonderful play she wrote, "Someone Close To You." As I mentioned in closing out <a href="https://therhinoshorn.blogspot.com/2022/12/a-few-parting-2022-thoughts.html">my blog for last year</a>, I've formed <a href="https://www.flippingthescriptshows.com/">a production company</a> dedicated to producing the work of those whose voices are not heard often enough, culturally and otherwise. I've selected Melissa's play as my first project and, last month, we had two readings of the play at Theatre West in Los Angeles, and both audiences responded enthusiastically to it. As a result, we are now in the process of planning for a limited run of SCTY at a theater in Los Angeles, which will (if it happens) take place sometime this fall.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Like a lot of American dramas, Melissa's play is a family drama, one that depicts a couple in the middle of two challenges: a pregnancy, and caring for a parent in declining health. How they meet those challenges is something that I believe will challenge audiences. In fact, when I first read the script, I found the ending to be at least a little bit challenging. But, far more importantly, I found it to be real, poignant, and thought-provoking. In other words, exactly the sort of theater that matters the most to me. That's why I was not surprised by the success of our readings. Not completely, anyway. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I told Melissa that, no matter how well a script reads, you never know whether a script can become a play until it's up on its feet on stage. But I had a good feeling about this one, based on decades of reading, seeing, and acting in plays, and our experience at Theater West validated that feeling. In addition to being a talented writer, Melissa is a terrific collaborator, who has responded very well to feedback from our director, James A. Goins, and me. Both of us look forward to working with her on the next stage (no pun intended) for this project.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Now, unfortunately, for a far sadder tribute.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In a former life, I worked for three years in New York City as a claims representative for the Social Security Administration, taking and approving or disapproving claims for Social Security benefits. I tremendously enjoyed living in New York, and enjoyed (for the most part) the people I interviewed as well as the people I worked with. But the system itself was and probably still is the most complicated system of legislation and regulation in our Federal system. Even worse, in fact, than the laws and regulations of the Internal Revenue Service, with which I've also worked in my legal career. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And, when I say I got along with my colleagues, that was not always the case when it came with the ones in management. In fact, when the Republicans came into national power, those latter relationships got worse, as all of us came under greater pressure to deny claims and otherwise find ways to cut benefits. This was my first career-type of position, and I was not prepared to deal with any of the stresses my job created, especially the Reagan-related stresses.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Fortunately, throughout all of this, I had one person I could turn to.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Her name was Julia Brandner. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Like me, she was a claims representative, although she had been working long enough (unlike me) to no longer have conditional status, as my employment did. Accordingly, she had a considerable amount of experience with both the technical knowledge of the work, as well as the politics of the office. More importantly, we shared an affinity for the arts and show business, although her tastes ran more to television, and "Peter Gunn" in particular, than to Broadway (or, even worse for her, science fiction). But, more importantly than anything else for me at that point, she was a kind and generous person, one who always organized office lunches at restaurants near our office, and who was always willing to listen when I had problems either with cases, or my immediate supervisor for most of my time there. The less said about him, the better, except I understand that, when he left SSA, he worked for a bill collector, and one could not possibly imagine a better match between employer and employee than that one.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">What astonished me about her friendship was the fact that it extended for so very long a time after I left New York in 1982. Up until September of 2020, each year without fail, I would get both a birthday and Christmas greeting from her. Thanks in no small part of this faithfulness on her part, I was able to keep up to date on what was going on with many of my former colleagues, and to be invited to her retirement party in 1999, which gave me the opportunity to see her and my colleagues one last time. Her kindness and generosity at every step of the past four decades has meant more than I can say, both personally and professionally.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Julia, no one has a greater right to be called my friend than you did, and always will. Baruch dayan ha'emess.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Finally, one more sad tribute for someone who added immeasurably to all of our lives. If you are an American, and regardless of your sexual identification, you owe her gratitude, although she has not been a household name for decades.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Her name was Patricia Schroeder. She was a congresswoman from Colorado, at a time when the House of Representatives was an almost entirely white, male political preserve. That is has moved some distance away from that status, albeit not completely, is due in no small measure to the rare combination of perseverance and progressivism that she brought every day to her career in the House.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I have taken the liberty here of reprinting the following, from Daily Kos. It is well worth your time to read it.</span></p><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;">Former Colorado Rep. Pat Schroeder, a Democrat who was one of the most prominent voices for women’s rights in Congress during her service from 1973 to 1997, died Monday at the age of 82. Schroeder, who was just one of just 14 women in the House when she first arrived, was instrumental in passing legislation like the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act and Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993. However, she acknowledged how much work still needed to be done in the title of her 1998 memoir, “24 Years of House Work … and the Place Is Still a Mess.”</span></blockquote><p></p><p></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Schroeder, who got her piloting license as a teenager, was one of only 15 women in her 1964 class of more than 500 at Harvard Law School. She recounted that, after the dean had told the small group, “Do you realize you have taken this position from a man?” another woman responded, “Well, I am only here because I could not get in at Yale.” Schroeder and her husband relocated to Denver after they both graduated, and at first it looked like Jim Schroeder would be the one who would have a political career.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In 1970 he campaigned for a seat in the state House and lost the general election by fewer than 50 votes. Pat Schroeder would recount decades later that legislators responded to that close call by drawing up a gerrymander that specifically placed their home in a new seat, boundaries that “didn't make any sense, except that's where Schroeder lived.” The future congresswoman, though, wrote in 1998, “But the law of unintended consequences bit the gerrymanderers―they kept Jim from running but they launched my political career!”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It was another 1970 election that would set in motion a chain of events that would help propel her to Congress two years later. Democratic Rep. Byron Rogers narrowly lost renomination after 10 terms to Craig Barnes, who emphasized his own opposition to the Vietnam War, but angry Rogers backers refused to support Barnes in the general election. That left an opening for Denver District Attorney Mike McKevitt, a Republican who had made headlines for shutting down screenings of the erotic film “I Am Curious (Yellow)” and who crusaded against restaurants with large hippie clienteles. McKevitt ended up winning the 1st Congressional District 52-45, which made him Denver’s first Republican House member in a quarter century.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Schroeder recounted that the original favorite for the Democratic nomination for 1972 was state Sen. Arch Decker, but her husband was one of many who wanted an alternative to someone they saw as “an elephant in donkey's clothing.” That proved to be a tough task, though, as few wanted to campaign in a year where they expected presidential nominee George McGovern to tank their chances. Schroeder, who taught law and had worked for the National Labor Relations Board, was therefore taken aback when Jim Schroeder relayed the news that local Democrats had mentioned her as a candidate.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">She described her first reaction as, “Don't tease me, I'm tired. Why should I be the designated kamikaze?” Jim Schroeder agreed that she stood no chance of beating McKevitt and likely wouldn’t even be the nominee, but she wrote that he continued, “But if you don't get in the race and articulate the issues, they will not be discussed. You think the government's policies about Vietnam and the environment are wrongheaded, and you're always urging your students to get involved.” </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">While Schroeder, who was still left “wonder[ing] what they served at this meeting,” still needed persuasion, she agreed to be “Dona Quixote” in a hopeless race: She’d remember, to her frustration, a newspaper summing up her announcement with the headline “Denver housewife runs for Congress.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Schroeder had to quickly organize a campaign to beat Decker, who remained the favorite of the party establishment. She remembered that at the important state party convention she was granted only 30 seconds to speak by leaders who wanted to “muzzle me with their fast clock.” She used her limited time to declare her support for Cesar Chavez’s lettuce boycott, an issue that resounded “with the “large Chicano population of the city” and helped her win the convention.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Schroeder went on to beat Decker 55-45, and he did not respond well to that shock defeat. “He went into a massive pout,” Schroeder wrote in her 1998 book, “literally pulling down the blinds in his house and refusing to speak to the press.” But despite that upset win, she had an even tougher six-week battle ahead of her against McKevitt, “who thought he was going to waltz through a non-campaign to victory.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The incumbent wasn’t the only one: Schroeder in a 2015 oral history interview with the House’s Office of the Historian said that the DCCC told her, “Well, we really have nothing to say to you; we can’t waste our money.” The Democrat, who ran on the slogan, “She wins, we win,” decided to wage an anti-war campaign that also emphasized her support for the children of migrant families and opposition to Denver hosting the 1976 Winter Olympics. (Colorado voters that fall would decisively back a referendum to withhold funding for the event, which ended up relocating to Austria.) </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Schroeder believed that, because establishment leaders didn’t help her, she benefited from running a nontraditional campaign that “seemed to penetrate the normal clutter and noise of politics.” She also said that Barnes, two years after his loss, transferred his “energized grassroots group to me.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">McKevitt, who demeaned his opponent as “Little Patsy,” continued to ignore Schroeder’s campaign, but the FBI didn’t. Schroeder said that her home was broken into “a couple of times” without anything obviously being stolen, but she didn’t think much of it at the time. She would learn a few years later, though, that the FBI suspected her slogan meant she was a communist, and that her husband’s barber was one of their informants. (“In hindsight it did seem rather odd how often he would show up in the middle of dinner,” she’d write.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Schroeder ended up shocking everyone, including herself, by unseating McKevitt 52-47, a victory that made her the first woman to represent Colorado in Congress. That win came at the same time that, according to analyst Kiernan Park-Egan, President Richard Nixon was beating McGovern 55-45 in the district.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Schroeder soon found herself in the “guy gulag” that was D.C., and she immediately faced a hostile reception from a prominent Democrat after she became the first woman to ever serve on the House Armed Services Committee. Chairman Edward Hébert, a longtime supporter of segregation, made Schroeder share a seat with Black colleague Ron Dellums, with her remembering him saying, “The two of you are only worth half the normal member.” (It’s disputed whether he actually uttered those words.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Schroeder, though, went on to become an influential member, and she quickly became entrenched at home. The congresswoman turned back state Rep. Frank Southworth 58-41 during the Democratic landslide of 1974, and she went on to beat another state representative, Don Friedman, 53-46 as Jimmy Carter was pulling off a tiny win in her constituency. This would be the last time Schroeder would fall below 59%: In 1982 she even fended off her old foe Decker, who had joined the GOP, 60-37. During the Reagan era, Schroeder also became known for dubbing the commander in chief the “Teflon president,” a label that ironically stuck.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Schroeder briefly formed a presidential exploratory committee in 1987 after former Colorado Sen. Gary Hart dropped out, but she failed to raise enough money. The congresswoman announced her decision to stay out of the race in a press conference where she fought back tears, something that drew scorn from several feminist leaders who argued she’d badly damaged the presidential hopes of future women. Schroeder later said, “I think it’s amazing that no one ever said that Joe Biden had ruined the future of men forever because people would think that they all plagiarized or that Gary Hart ruined the future of men forever because they all played around.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Schroeder decided to retire the cycle after the 1994 Republican wave left her in the minority for the first time, and she went on to spend 11 years leading the Association of American Publishers. During her final month in the House she responded to a Los Angeles Times’ question about what advice she’d give women arriving in Congress, “I think women still should never kid themselves that they’re going to come here and be part of the team. And you ought to come here with a very clear definition of what it is you want to do, and that you will not be deterred.”</span></p><p></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: medium;">What an amazing combination of courage and cleverness she possessed! The Democratic Party could use candidates with that same combination now more than ever! Truly, all that I can add to the above is that now, more than ever, today's Democratic Party needs to run everywhere across the county, to find ways to communicate its progressive message in places where it may not be easy to do so. It will entail risks. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But, with a nation on the edge of civil war, it has never been more necessary. My generation is particular has been able to grow up in an age of leisure, one that kindled indolence at the same time it inspired idealism. We have generations ready to come after us, eager to build on the progress that has been made, and yet we have allowed our indolence to squander our idealism. Shaking off the former to embrace the latter will entail facing risks greater than the ones Congresswoman Schroeder faced. But, if she were still here with us, no one would insist harder that we face those risks without fear, without favor, without pause, and without pity for those who would be happy to reduce the words "freedom" and "democracy" to labels to be slapped on the face of their proposed tyranny. Her example will always live with us. Let us embrace it, build on it, and find true American greatest in the place where it has always lain. In each other.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Three stories of three remarkable women. All of whom deserve our praise and respect. Let their stories be told again and again. And let many other similar ones be added to them.</span></p>Stephen Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04248740872885333114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-779623857764606765.post-73536177202087256252023-02-26T19:52:00.000-08:002023-02-26T19:52:02.936-08:00The Power And The Glory, Threatened By The Young And The Restless<p><span style="font-size: medium;">One of the things about writing a blog, as is the case with any regularly scheduled program of writing: some days you can't wait to sit down and start typing, and other days, you sit in front of your screen and think, "OK, now what?" And then, there are the weeks, like the past few, where a political writer has all sorts of options. Fox News. The Georgia grand jury. Jimmy Carter, speaking about Georgia. East Palestine. Ukraine. The SOTU address, speaking about Biden. MTG's plan for red and blue states to divorce, speaking of Congress.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I'd like to write about all of that. I will, in fact, write about at lease some of it next month. But I've been moved by two events to return to a subject I've written about a number of times, and yet it never gets old for me. Even though I may not have much in the way of new information to share about it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I'm talking about evangelical Christianity, with which I had a long, difficult, and ultimately traumatic relationship in my young adulthood. For me, part of the trauma was the feeling that being "born again" had been actually a kind of "failure to launch" into an adulthood, one that I carried within my family as a kind of source of shame, even though there was a profound benefit to that failure: my marriage, my new family, and career choices that I could only have dreamed about when I was younger. It's why I don't regret at all the trajectory of my life. On the other hand, having had my development "sidetracked" the way it was made me feel like I was unique, and not in a particularly good way.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And then, I read <a href="https://kirstenpowers.substack.com/p/the-he-gets-us-super-bowl-ads-brought?r=d95f&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email">this</a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I have always been an admirer of Kirsten Powers' work. I believe that, among political commentators, that she is truly and consistently fair and balanced. I think that she comes as close as it is possible to being a "centrist" in a world where centrism has been hard to find and therefore harder than ever to define. Which is why I appreciated her humility and candor in sharing by way of Substack her experience with born-again Christianity, and her difficult separation from it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">For me, it was especially bracing to read her description of her struggle to regain her sense of personal agency after she left the evangelical world. As I told her in my comment on her post, this was the breaking point for me with that world, twelve years into it. I finally realized, during what was for me one very bleak December, when I was in danger of becoming unemployed, with no immediate career prospects, very little in the bank, and two very frustrated parents who were wondering when I was going to put life together, what the problem was.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And that was the point when I figured out what the problem was.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Evangelical Christianity, boiled down to its functional essence, has something in common with the political world to which, in the U.S., it is now joined at the hip. Unlike the Gospel it supposedly preaches, it is not a world in which the greatest virtue is humility and the worst sin is pride. Indeed, on a brass-tacks basis, it is 180 degrees away from that Gospel. Evangelical Christianity is about <i>power</i>. Not in any democratic sense. Not even in the sense of power for all evangelicals. It is about power for a few wealthy, well-connected members of the clergy, over their congregants, their congregations, and the Constitution they pretend to defend.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And to get there, they play mind-control games with their followers, by teaching them to doubt their simplest impulses and inclinations, and to see any form of failure in their personal lives as a reflection of some sort of secret "sin" that must be flushed out. And, of course, that flushing out <i>must </i>be done under the supervision of some supposedly more mature, more "enlightened" person or program, in return for your providing a hefty portion of your disposable income to the "enlightened."<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Ultimately, this leads the poor suckers who fall under the spell of the "enlightened" to question <i>all </i>of life's decisions. Even the most basic ones, like taking a specific job, moving to a certain city, dating a certain person. And I was absolutely there, with a sense of self-esteem so low I would have to reach a thousand miles down to touch the top of it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I had, in short, completely lost my sense of self-agency. And that December, I finally realized it. What G-d has really given each of us, in the form of a soul, and a body with various abilities, is a kind of ship. We are, in some sense, limited by the ship's limitations. But it's otherwise up to us to be the captain of it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">That's what Kirsten Powers had to re-learn, and that is also what I had to re-learn as well.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But here's the larger point: I stated a moment ago that evangelical Christianity and politics are joined at the hip. I should have been more specific. Evangelical Christianity and <i>conservative</i> politics, with which it shares an obsession with control, are joined at the hip. That has been true for <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Unequal-Yoke-Evangelical-Christianity-Conservatism/dp/159752977X">decades</a>. But it has never been more dangerous than now, when political conservatism has shifted from being a philosophy to being a fifth column.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">At the same time, conservatives of both the secular and spiritual variety are recognizing that, having won victories with the Greatest Generation and Boomers, they are losing the battle with the generations that follow. Take, for example, the "He Gets Us" Super Bowl ads that provided the jumping-off point for Ms. Powers' post. As you can read about <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/13/2152733/-Those-cloying-He-Gets-Us-Super-Bowl-ads-were-funded-by-billions-from-right-wing-organizations?detail=emaildkre&pm_source=DKRE&pm_medium=email">here</a>, these ads, which are framed to make Jesus sound like some sort of latter-day hippie (gee, haven't we tried this <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_movement">before</a>, too?), are in fact bought and paid for by some of the most powerful conservatives infecting our politics.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I say "infected," because these people, far from doing G-d's will, work actively to subvert that will in a variety of ways, whether it involved crippling the IRS to ensure it won't look too closely into <a href="https://twitter.com/mikecleere/status/1627717492645990401?s=20">the finances of megachurches</a>, or <a href="https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/politics-power/catholic-church-abuse-statute-of-repose-T4VWE7QVLJAQJEULRYCF4QJ2GE/?schk=YES&rchk=YES&utm_source=The+Baltimore+Banner&utm_campaign=31ce0726d3-NL_AMSC_20230214_0630&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-31ce0726d3-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D&mc_cid=31ce0726d3&mc_eid=a2b9ab960a">preventing those who have suffered from abuse by priests</a> (which probably included at least one member of my family) from coming forward to seek justice. As the latter point indicates, the problem is by no means limited to Christianity of the evangelical variety.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But the "He Gets Us" campaign exists for a reason: it is addressing the uprising by young people against the authoritarian theocracy that all of us have allowed to spring up in our midst. You need look no further than <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/10/us/jinger-duggar-vuolo-evangelical-christians.html">this</a> to see what I'm talking about.*</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">If we all heed the words of Jinger Duggar, and many others like her, we may all yet find ourselves freed from the power and the glory of evangelical conservatism by the young and the restless who have learned to see through its false promises and its greater lust for a secular kingdom rather than a spiritual one. Democracy can only survive if each citizen reclaims the helm of his, her, or their personal ship. Ms. Powers and I have reclaimed ours. I hope and pray that you reclaim yours.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">*Full disclosure: the Times article to which I have linked here references both Bill Gothard and Brian McLaren. I went to one of Mr. Gothard's seminars, an experience that contributed mightily to my loss of self-agency. As for Mr. McLaren, I had the good fortune to meet him later on, an experience that helped me to regain it.</span></p>Stephen Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04248740872885333114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-779623857764606765.post-17790695731301109822023-02-20T18:24:00.000-08:002023-02-20T18:24:16.229-08:00Good Riddance To Larry Hogan<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I've waited eight years to write that headline. Sometimes, it felt like I would never get a chance to do it, even though I knew it would happen. In an election season where it seemed like that the political tide would flow toward the GQP, I was able to console myself, as a native and nearly lifelong resident of Maryland, with one powerful and incontrovertible fact.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Come January of 2023, Larry Hogan would be out of the Governor's Mansion, and out of Maryland politics. He would be free to pursue the fantasy shared by him and an incredibly supple corporate press: using his reputation as a "moderate" Republican to tame the Trump-transformed national party, sweep through the 2024 primary season toward nomination for the presidency, and Make America Safe Again from both the Orange Iguana and the leftist hordes of the "Democrat" Party.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Well, you be the judge of how likely this fantasy is to come true. I know that polls are increasingly unreliable as the thermometers of political reality, but I read their results at any rate, and I have yet to see a single one concerning the 2024 Republican presidential nomination showing Hogan with anything other than single-digit support. To be precise, <i>low </i>single-digit support. To put an even finer point on it, think of the numeral 1. But not as in "number one choice."</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Consider this fact as well: Hogan's would-be Republican successor in Annapolis, Dan Cox, made absolutely no effort to appear "moderate" next to anyone, except possibly Attila the Hun. He ran an unabashedly Trumpian campaign, and the voters handed him his political head as a result, preferring the moderate-in-tone, progressive-in-substance Wes Moore. But why? Why, if Hogan's brand of so-called moderation was so impressive, was no Republican able to capitalize on it? Why, by electing Moore, did Maryland effectively return (thankfully) to its prior default position as a state that preferred a slow but steady policy course to the left?</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Because, politically speaking, Larry Hogan is a complete fake. And, when it comes to Larry Hogan, that's the good news. Because Larry Hogan, deep down inside, is little more than a kinder, gentler version of Trump.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I take no pleasure in making this assessment. Like an all-too-growing cohort in conservative politics, Hogan is a legacy politician. His father, with whom he shares his first and last name, was a true moderate back in the days when such creatures actually existed in office. Of special importance is the fact that he served on the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate period, and broke with his party's official line at the time to support the impeachment of Richard Nixon. The subsequent release of Nixon's Oval Office tape recordings revealed how farsighted, as well as courageous, that break was for our democracy.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Hogan rode his father's reputation into office in 2015, running against an inept Democratic candidate (good luck to him as <a href="https://apnews.com/article/politics-maryland-state-government-baltimore-anthony-brown-bc847f0611ddedde75da81b4db63a6b1">our new attorney general</a>, by the way) as well as voter frustration with Martin O'Malley's pursuit of national office at the expense of his local obligations. Then, early in his first term, when he and we learned that he was facing a battle against cancer, he was able to rally Marylanders across party lines to route for his recovery, including me. However, when Hogan noticed that this had the effect of softening and even reducing political criticism of him generally, he did not do what most public figures do when they disclose a health-care battle: treat it as a personal matter, and ask for privacy. Instead, he used it as the center of a full-court-press reshaping of his image, wiping out most if not all discussion of his more controversial moves and transforming his image from that of a politician to that of a heroic survivor.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Hogan's use of his cancer diagnosis to soften his media image, and the media willingness to accept the soft-news bait he was offering them by doing so, has been incredibly useful in disguising the fact that, as "moderate Republicans" go, Hogan is more Republican than moderate. He managed to stretch the cancer-related good will through two terms, making the prediction in <a href="https://prospect.org/power/larry-hogan-can-beat/">this article</a> a bit off. But, in a sense, the article also anticipated the outcome of Hogan's re-election as governor, by noting the role that positioning himself as a cancer survivor played in obscuring the substance of his governing.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And this media slight-of-hand was by no means limited to local coverage. He even managed to parlay his diagnosis into a national reputation, of which <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/04/opinion/sunday/republicans-donald-trump-larry-hogan.html">this New York Times interview</a> is a sad, pathetic example. I have a very high regard for Frank Bruni, but this piece just absolutely reeks of what has been described (I think fairly) as "helicopter journalism": well-known national reporter drops in on a local official for a day and, solely on the strength of that visit, performs a complete public diagnosis of politics in that state. It's not an exaggeration to say that Hogan's national reputation is almost entirely built on puff pieces like Bruni's.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">The worst things about those pieces are not only their contribution to the well-deserved poor reputation of journalism today, but the role they have played in obscuring the hard political facts of Hogan's governance--or, more precisely, his failure to govern and even subvert good governance. On that subject, the facts speak for themselves, in articles that have not received the same level of attention as the cancer-related coverage.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Let's start with the giant anchor around both the GQP and the nation, the 800-pound gorilla that refuses to go away, even though he can't win a majority of the popular vote: Donald Trump. Since then, a significant number of Republicans have walked away from their party, clearly stating that there is no chance of their return until Trump and the lunatic brand of politics he represents goes away. But Hogan has gone in the opposite direction, <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/anti-trump-republican-larry-hogan-declares-support-for-trump-if-hes-the-nominee">refusing, in fact, to refrain</a> from declaring that he would not support Trump if he were once again the GQP nominee.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">And why should he? What really<i> is </i>the substance of Larry Hogan's politics? The fact is that he's gone out his way to dodge taking positions on a number of issues, and many pieces of popular legislation addressing these issues, even going so far as <a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-xxxx-pinsky-hogan-principles-20221005-7jbfedakrzhmniuxgx4ecuwrna-story.html">to allow many of them to become law <i>without</i> his signature</a>. Frequently, this is what corporate media means when they describe him as a "moderate." Apparently, if you're a public official in contemporary America, all you have to appear to be a "moderate" is to do is nothing at all.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Unfortunately, that's a trick that not even Hogan has been able to pull off. He has done things. Bad things, unfortunately.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">When he had the opportunity to bring refugees into the state that would have helped boost its economy, especially in Baltimore, where block after block is filled with empty houses, <a href="http://marylandissues.com/">Hogan said no</a>.</span></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">When, early last year, it was first apparent that the Supreme Court would reverse Roe v. Wade, and the Comptroller requested that state funds be released to train abortion providers, </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/05/05/maryland-larry-hogan-abortion-funds-providers">Hogan said no</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-size: medium;">While hate crimes and opioid deaths rose here and around the country, Hogan failed to keep a promise to treat the latter as an emergency, and ignored the pain created by the former by associating with <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/30/meet-larry-hogan-marylands-trump/">supporters of the likes of Roy Moore and Brett Kavanaugh</a>.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">And, in a state that prides itself on having world-class public education, not only did Hogan make war on the General Assembly's implementation of a plan to make Maryland education second to none, <a href="https://twitter.com/erinatthepost/status/1174735153366798337?s=11">he used funds from dark-money sources to do it</a>.</span></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Of course, it's not like he made it easy for you to find out about any of this, as he found and implemented a way to <a href="https://twitter.com/ron_cassie/status/1476599131909066759?s=11">subvert state record-keeping laws</a>.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><div><br /></div></span></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Perhaps his greatest act of both hypocrisy is his handling of state transportation needs. Despite a reputation as "Governor Asphalt," ready to pave Maryland with roads, roads, and still more roads, the fact is that Hogan <a href="https://twitter.com/mkorman/status/1413246341313138689">grossly underfunded state transportation projects</a>, then proposed a monstrous "public-private partnership" that would use park land to create more traffic-clogged lanes in the DC area, and stick taxpayers for the bill if the "partnership" fails to make money off of it. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This, and many other penny-wise pound-foolish decisions in other areas of state spending, is the cost of his war on taxes and user fees. If you're going to fight that war, and deliberately starve the needs of the public, you owe it to that public to advertise the price tag. But that was not Hogan's style. Never has been, and never will be, for any Republican; far easier, as well as far more deceitfully to pretend that every meal can consist of three courses of dessert.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But then, there was one transportation decision that summed up Hogan's deceit, as well as the subtextual racism of his party and his administration: his cancellation of what he characterized as a "wasteful boondoggle," the Red Line potentially connecting eastern and western Baltimore County (in which I live) with the existing Metro and light-rail lines in Baltimore City. Had this been allowed to become a reality, it could have led to the beginning of a true metropolitan rail system in the Baltimore area, and one that might have been able to connect with the Washington Metro system and create a regional system on the scale of New York and Chicago. And, were that to happen, the economic benefits for the state would have truly been explosive. You need look no further than the D.C. metropolitan area to see the dynamic effect that the Metro has had there.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A small personal digression is in order.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I worked for the State of Maryland for twelve years, the last eight of which were spent working in procurement. During that time, I saw a transition in state government from a Democratic governor, Parris Glendening, to a Republican successor, Robert Ehrlich. I expected, as did many of my colleagues, that fiscal belt-tightening would be the order of the day. But one exception to that made by Governor Ehrlich had to do with federal money. He believed the state had an obligation to capture every federal dollar that might be available to it. This was especially important with regard to child welfare, the area in which I worked. Despite the fact that the Governor and I were members of different parties, I appreciated the fact that he took the impact of federal spending on the state seriously.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Would that Hogan had followed his example, not only regarding the Red Line but other public priorities as well. But Hogan's fiscal strategy was not entirely designed to address fiscal purposes. In truth, it was part of a larger strategy was part of <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/07/18/how-larry-hogan-kept-black-baltimore-segregated-and-poor-367930">a larger strategy to keep Baltimore segregated, and poor</a>. In other words, to fulfill the goals of his political base in Western Maryland, the people who believe that public money should only be spent according to the wishes of the people who provide it. In practice, that means more for white people, and less for people of color. And you may be sure that, for Western Marylanders and Hogan, their political patron, that was the real point.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>This is why Hogan not only cancelled the Red Line, but spent <a href="https://usa.streetsblog.org/2017/04/21/how-you-can-tell-larry-hogans-decision-to-kill-the-red-line-was-racial-discrimination/">eight years making war</a> on Baltimore's economic development and education funding. He did his best to hide this, and the cancer diagnosis helped him do that. But, every so often, something would seep out into public attention. Here is one example: some of Hogan's </span>Anne Arundel County supporters wanted to close light-rail stops in their county, <a href="https://www.wbaltv.com/article/residents-want-glen-burnie-light-rail-stops-to-stay-closed-amid-seemingly-increased-crime/22728930#">for specious reasons</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But then, all you really have to do is <a href="https://twitter.com/American_Bridge/status/1033012693203136512">take the word of the man himself</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I will give him this much credit. Larry Hogan did a brilliant job for two terms as the Governor of Western Maryland. But he did it at the expense of the short-term <i>and </i>long-term needs of the rest of the state. And he has left behind a residue of racial animus that reminds those of us with a long memory for Maryland politics, and not in a good way, of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_P._Mahoney">this man</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Do you get it now?</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This is the man who wants to now run off to Iowa, and other presidential primary states, along with his corporate media press clippings, and sell himself as some kind of middle-of-the-road alternative to Donald Trump, as well as Ron DeSantis.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Larry Hogan is not an alternative to them. He may be slightly softer in style, but in substance <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/30/meet-larry-hogan-marylands-trump/">he is a carbon copy of Trump</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And I think that voters on the ground know it. Which goes a long way toward explaining the 1%. Why buy a steak with no sizzle, when you can buy one that ignites itself to become as well-done as the customers want?</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That's Trump. And that's what DeSantis wants to be, although, when it comes to presence, he's still quite a ways behind Trump, no matter how many times he says "woke."</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But that's the national battle, to be fought nationally over the next two years. For now, I am grateful that the local political scene has reverted back to sanity, to inclusion, to public service over self-service. With our first governor and lieutenant governor of color, and a state legislature solidly in Democratic hands, the future of the Free State looks bright. Maryland can be Maryland again. Maybe, just maybe, with a little bit of luck and hard work, America can be America again. Meanwhile, Marylanders can look forward to projects like <a href="https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/community/transportation/penn-station-redevelopment-design-architecture-P4RDKWWCWBHIHC6R4DV6QFMJBE/?utm_source=The+Baltimore+Banner&utm_campaign=044321d85e-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_01_27_06_24&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-044321d85e-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D&mc_cid=044321d85e&mc_eid=a2b9ab960a">this</a>, which one day could become a major hub of a truly regional rail system.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Good riddance to Larry Hogan. G-d grant that, soon, we may say good riddance to Trump, and to MAGA politics.</span></div>Stephen Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04248740872885333114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-779623857764606765.post-81738080494431493582023-01-22T13:53:00.000-08:002023-01-22T13:53:31.326-08:00Two Points Regarding Classified Documents<p><span style="font-size: medium;">A planet on fire, an economy riddled with debt run up by the millionaires that control it, the vast majority of people struggling daily to make ends meet, authoritarianism on the rise, and what is the corporate press (left and right) wringing its digital hands about?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Right. Who is the greater sinner when it comes to unauthorized possession of classified documents--Trump or Biden?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I'm going to start here with the larger point that everyone seems to be missing about this: how is it apparently so easy to obtain and hold onto classified documents long after the apparent need to possess them is finished? On the strength of both the Trump and Biden stories, it appears to be far easier than any of us might have previously thought. Which, in turn, ought to raise another question: how many more people, in and no longer in government service, are in possession of such documents? For what purpose? And is the National Archives aware of any such documents? Does it not have some sort of tracking system in place to ensure who has what, and what needs to come back to the Archives when the professed need for the documents has ended?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This, I think, is the larger scandal that's evidenced here. At some point, there has to be a congressional investigation of what happened, not only with regard to the Trump and Biden cases, but also to identify any other cases that might exist. At a guess, it's probably safe to assume that there are many more cases out there than anyone might have imagined. And, given the potential damage to American interests that might result from those cases, the sooner a bipartisan commission gets to the bottom of what's going on, the better. Of course, good luck with that in the House, given its current <ahem> configuration. Perhaps something can happen on the Senate side; if so, it should with all deliberate speed.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">My second point: conceding that both Biden and Trump are on the wrong side of the law here, has the press coverage of this story descended into false equivalency territory?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I'm almost tempted to ask: what do <i>you </i>think (and, as always, you're more than welcome to leave comments).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Of course they have, and that is to be expected, because the corporate press lives to protect its profits rather than the public interest that the First Amendment is meant to help them protect. The differences between the way Trump and Biden have responded to their respective situations could not, in any case, be more different. Biden has extended the maximum amount of cooperation to the Justice Department. He has not pretended that the documents are his property, nor have any of his lawyers, staff members, or allies pretended that he has a right to them. There has been no need for a warrant, or an FBI raid. And, finally, the difference in the respective numbers of documents in each case differs, as of this point, by a factor of 30. A factor that weighs against Trump.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It's not surprising that Biden's political enemies have weighed in against him on this. It's marginally more surprising that some of his allies have gone so far as to suggest that he should step aside in 2024 as a result of it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">For whom?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.nationofchange.org/2023/01/18/so-much-for-the-idea-that-biden-is-the-one-to-beat-the-gop-in-2024/">Here's</a> an example. Read it carefully. One thing you should notice: the absence of an alternative.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">That's not accidental. The fact is that there is no viable political alternative. None. Zero. No one that has the same level of political recognition and support that Biden has. Even with this anchor tied around his neck. And his opponents on the left know that. All they have is a handful of future possibilities and a ton of wishful thinking.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">My advice to my friends on the left: reframe the issue, along the lines of the points I've made here. Advocate for a bipartisan Senate committee for reforming not just the Archives, but the entire classification process, which is long overdue in any case. That's how you take charge of the narrative. And I would bet real money that, if such a committed is convened and launches an investigation, more sinners on both sides of the aisle will be identified.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Which means that the issue will lose its partisan punch, And Trump's far greater sins on this issue will fold back into the larger image of him as the most corrupt President in the history of the Republic. I can assure you that the process of this happening will be aided by the larger swirl of scandal surrounding him. That, and the indictments that I believe will finally be announced this year.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Stop letting the media wring your hands, folks, and don't lose sight of the real enemy. It isn't Biden, who is far from perfect. But you don't even want to begin to think about the potential reality of what GQP authoritarian might replace him.</span></p>Stephen Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04248740872885333114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-779623857764606765.post-54989475282444883712023-01-21T20:45:00.000-08:002023-01-21T20:45:08.181-08:00McCarthy's Mess, Or How To Get Started On The Wrong Foot<p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Happy New Year to you and everyone!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">And where to begin? Well, the most logical place to begin is with the convening of the new House of Representatives. After all, if it's possible for most of us to agree on anything when it comes to politics, it's that none of us have ever witnessed the opening of a new Congress that looked like the spectacle that has unfolded over the past two weeks. And we should be thankful for that fact. When I use the word "spectacle," it's because I try to spare my readers the experience of my using more colorful language.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">I witnessed most of the first week, or as much as I could stand of it, because I knew going in that the events that unfolded were going to do even more damage to our politics and governance than we've already witnessed in the Trump era (a label I use reluctantly, since I'm acquainted with Trump's love of plastering his name on everything he touches). I found myself reacting to what I saw with a wider range of emotions than I expected. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">On the one hand, not everything I witnessed upset me. Some of it even made me proud. On the other hand, that which I fully expected to be revolting revolted me even more than I expected. Just when you think contemporary Republicans have reached the sub-cellar for bad behavior, they suddenly seem to find another level underneath it. Maybe Trump's background in real estate helps them with that. Maybe, more likely, it simply encourages the cynicism, ambition, and deceit that was always there.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">At any rate, the following are my random thoughts and reactions to what unfolded in the People's House.</span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">The professionalism of the congressional staff.</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">I don't think enough can be said about this. Technically, the new House does not exist until a Speaker is elected, which, in this case, took the better part of a week. As a result, for that span of time, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerk_of_the_United_States_House_of_Representatives">the Clerk of the House, Cheryl Johnson, and her staff</a> were in charge of the proceedings. They are part of that permanent army of government employees that we routinely, and often unthinkingly, refer to with disdain as "bureaucrats." And yet, without that army, the routine functioning of the government, the functioning that we take for granted, the functioning that is based as much on loyalty to our country and dedication to serving its interests, as well as a deep well of institutional experience and professional training, simply would not take place.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">I might as well put my personal cards on the table here: I have spent fifteen years of my life as a bureaucrat, in federal and state agencies. During that time, I had the privilege of working with people from both parties, and am happy to assure you that the same level of loyalty, dedication, experience and training that you saw from the Clerk and the members of her staff is typical of most, if not all, of the people working in those agencies--both the career civil servants, and the political appointees. It is, however, the former that particularly carry the burden of day-to-day business. I am proud to be one of them, and I am proud of my bureaucratic brothers and sisters for the work they did in holding the House proceedings together for the week without a Speaker. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Don't take it from me. If there was one thing on which everyone was agreed, it was, based on several of the statements from the House floor, it was on the quality of the work done by the Clerk and her staff. But I want everyone, and I mean everyone, to think about that very carefully, the next time they hear anyone use "bureaucrats" as a scapegoat for what's wrong in Washington, and elsewhere.</span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">The unity and boldness of Democrats</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">The Democratic caucus, now in the House minority, made it clear that that the three D's the media love to place on their party--depressed, divided, and in disarray--do not define their willingness to do the people's business, or their appreciation of the challenges that exist for them in doing so.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">In talking about that, let's start with <a href="https://twitter.com/nickknudsenus/status/1611456699122208769?s=43&t=7od8oYPDgofYq0aMafxFeA">this</a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">The entire caucus assembled on the steps of the Capitol, to commemorate the second anniversary of an attempt by a right-wing thugocracy to destroy the honest counting of presidential electoral votes and the legislative process more generally. They were their to commemorate the failure of that effort, and the sacrifices made by law enforcement officials to ensure that failure.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">And they were joined by a single Republican. Single, as in one of of the 222-member majority. None of them could be bothered to show up and back the blue with their colleagues.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">That may have been the most subtle breach of constitutional behavior by the new majority. But, as other events demonstrated, it was far from the only one.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">More about that presently. Back, for now, to Democratic unity.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Perhaps it's because the size of the Republican majority is so small, as well as unstable. Perhaps it's because even the older, less diverse members of the Democratic caucus have seen the future in the increasing number of younger, more diverse members, and understand that it's a future that works (apologies, Lincoln Steffens). Perhaps, more than anything else, it's because every one of those members, young or old, understands the exact nature and power of the threat from across the aisle.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Nevertheless, over the course of all fifteen ballots in the speakership vote, they unanimously stood behind their new leader Hakeem Jeffries, resisting the pleas of corporate media to "reach across the aisle" and vote for a man who couldn't even muster a strong showing from within his own party. They openly mocked, in ways subtle and <a href="https://lithub.com/katie-porter-reading-a-book-during-the-gops-house-speaker-fight-is-all-of-us/">not-so subtle</a>, the disarray and associated lunacy that they and the people they represent were being subjected to. And, when Jeffries took the podium after the voting for the formal transfer of power from one party to another, they cheered him with one voice as he <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5050190/york-democrat-hakeem-jeffries-delivers-speech-mccarthys-election-speaker-house">used the alphabet</a> to mock the new regime.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">I appreciate the fact that Democrats stood together and publicly treated the nonsense as nonsense. Which is why I think not having C-SPAN in the House is a bad idea. After all, the current state of disrepair in the House began back in the 1990s, when Newt Gingrich used C-SPAN to turn voters away from the long-standing Democratic majority. Turnabout may not be pretty, but it can and should certainly be fair play.</span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">The violence on the floor</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">In life, as someone once said, there are leaders and followers. And in politics, there are people who have the label of a leader and the behavior of a follower. And, in our current crisis, Kevin McCarthy is Exhibit A for the latter proposition.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Despite being repeated touted in the legacy corporate press as a "moderate," McCarthy is a man without any political compass, or even a moral one. No greater illustration of this exists than his backtracking from<a href="https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/january-6-anniversary-house-speaker-vote-mccarthy-20230105.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=will_bunch_alerts_01_05_2023&sfmc_id=0031U0000249wKwQAI&sub_source=will_bunch_newsletter&list_name=DE15_Newsletter_Will_Bunch&int_promo=newsletter&et_rid=588885102"> his fiery denunciation of Trump and the Capitol attack Trump instigated to his trip to Mar-A-Lago weeks latter</a> to get down on his knees to the Orange Iguana and beg for forgiveness. This show of sniveling was, as the night would show, the shape of things to come. In more ways than one.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">The chaos and extremism of the January 6 attack had its analog in the first week of the new Congress, in both the multiple ballots for the speakership and the outrageous demands of a fraction of the GQP caucus for the sake of awarding it to McCarthy. As is the case after every election, the new majority had nearly two months to get its act together, to hash out their differences and show on Day One that they were ready to serve the interests of the nation. In our lifetimes, this sort of orderly transition is so orderly it barely rates five minutes on the evening news. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">In this case, it seems that those two months could not have been devoted to anything except the level of disorder and disruption to which the American people were treated to for a week on their screens. And all for the sake of appeasing people who are, basically, unappeasable. They have absolutely no goals other than being in charge. And that much they plainly accomplished. But, in the process, they accomplished something else: <span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>demonstrating that </span><span>the </span><span>insurrection has moved from outside of the Capitol building to <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/01/mccarthy-speaker-vote-jan-sixth-again.html">inside the House chamber</a>.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>And, however much the House Democrats may have enjoyed watching the party-in-disarray narrative flip to characterizing their opponents, they can't be content with laughing at what is on one level laughable. The chaos inside of the House is likely to lead, perhaps is already beginning to lead, to violence on a par with the attack two years years ago. The <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/01/07/friday-nights-extraordinary-house-fight-doesnt-bode-well-for-the-two-years-to-come/">near-fist-fight</a> toward the end of the balloting could be a small taste of what is to come.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And not only on the floors of Congress. but <a href="https://twitter.com/noisymv/status/1611792327575769088?s=43&t=IdC0g-C-sYoJnKkMY4PKAw">here</a>. And <a href="https://twitter.com/repmaxwellfrost/status/1612194627452391424?s=43&t=QsW7uztFZRhgEZD13rwHrA">abroad</a>. Perhaps nearly <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-replaces-democracy_n_639b6873e4b0aeb2ace1dd70">everywhere</a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">You don't want to be in a position of having to oppose force with force? Fine. The sooner one draws a line, the less likely it becomes that one has to openly defend it. We are, frankly, in that position because Democrats in the past haven't heeded that lesson. For all of our sakes, they'd better start heeding it now. That show of unity can't run for a day or a week. It has to be nonstop from here on out.</span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">The transparent weakness of McCarthy </span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">From the partisan standpoint of the GQP, the spectacle of McCarthy sacrificing every perogative he needs to keep the House in order to the claque of fanatics who want to watch everthing burn, and even begging on camera for the votes he needed to stick his nose across the finish line, could not possibly have been worse. <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/01/mccarthys-day-one-plan-gut-the-office-of-congressional-ethics/">Gutting the House ethics office</a>, even as the fanatics scheme to impeach the entire Biden administration. Given them a chance to systemically defund entire federal offices should anyone in them make a peep against the interests of the fanatics' donors. Enabling them to put McCarthy's job in jeopardy <i>by a single vote </i>if he doesn't say "How high?" every them one of them says "Jump!"</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">McCarthy has given away so much of the power of the office he just barely obtained that it might be a compliment to even call him a follower. He is certainly no one's idea of a leader. He may very well be little more at this point than a hood ornament on the authoritarian jalopy of his caucus.</span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">The transparently bad GQP spin on the process</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Spin, spin, spin. Yes, both parties do it, and I'm guilty of it from time to time myself. But the Republicans do it with more shamelessness and less fidelity to the facts than do Democrats. That's primarily because Republicans, like the majority of Americans, evaluate everything, even matters of significant substance, by way of style points. That, sadly, is evidence of a society that is in decay because of the distance between its founding principles and its present state.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">And without question, the House GQP caucus was doing its best (or worst) to spin-doctor the nightmare unfolding before the viewing public. Oh, its members said, this is just the sort of deliberation every party needs to go through when it re-takes power. Once this sorts itself out, they assured us, we'll be astonished by how ready they are to lead the nation, by way of investigating every Biden they can get their hands on.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">I'll say this much for them: they are astonishing, although not in the way they might want us to think that they are. But I repeat: they had nearly TWO MONTHS to sort everything out and spare us the week-long debacle. I find myself remembering the public clichés of previous Republican conquests. "Hit the ground running." "Ready on Day One." This was more like hitting the ground stumbling, and needing all the luck in the world to be ready by Labor Day.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #0f1419;">Perhaps the best way to sum up both the cravenness of McCarthy's grasping climb to power and the Orwellian confidence the GQP has in its ability to memory-hole anything is <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mccarthy-expunge-trumps-impeachment_n_63c25dd4e4b0d6f0ba05142f">this</a>. I tend to doubt that this can or will actually happen. Expungement is a legal procedure by which an individual convicted of a crime can have all records related to that conviction purged. How do you do that with a historic event that has been recorded all over the world? For that matter, how do you convince the other house of Congress to purge its records of the trials it conducted, neither of which resulted in a conviction?</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #0f1419;">And one more thing, relating to my earlier observation about C-SPAN. Whether or not you think that open monitoring of Congress is or is not a good idea, you're about to lose the opportunity to gain more evidence for making a decision on that point. That's because Kevin and company are, at least for now, <a href="https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1612570750522740757">making that choice for you</a>.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #0f1419;">The bad news is that the only thing this House will ever be ready for is chaos. The even worse news is that it is likely to drag all of us into that chaos.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #0f1419;">Leaving one last point to make here:</span></span></span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">The education for the rest of us: is it even possible to reach across the aisle if all you’re going to get is a fist fight?</span></b></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1419; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;">Very unlikely. There are only going to be two things that will take their focus off of shooting themselves and the rest of us in the foot.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1419; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first is going to be the need to protect themselves. Gutting the House ethics office is only the first step. After that, they're going to need to spend time on putting out the fires that will erupt in the press whenever one or more members stumble and have their corruption exposed for all to see. Freshman GQP Congressman George Santos (or whatever his name is) remains the most immediate example for the moment. But be assured: there will be others.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1419; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;">Speaking of Santos, note that his Republican defenders are describing what he has done as having <a href="https://twitter.com/AccountableGOP/status/1613582076887928844">"embellished"</a> his resume. Wrong. I speak as someone who has, in a former life, been paid to write resumes professionally. Using a word like "manage" to describe making multiple coffee deliveries is embellishment. Saying you graduated from a college you never attended is a bald-face, unabashed lie. And Santos' resume is chock-full of them. If Gym Jordan is right in saying that every Republican does this, that's all you need to know to never vote for a Republican again.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1419; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;">Later, they will branch out from protecting themselves to protecting their donors, by making sure, for example, that <a href="https://www.crfb.org/blogs/irs-funding-repeal-could-cost-over-100-billion-encourage-tax-cheating">those donors never have to worry about committing tax fraud</a> at the expense of the rest of us.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Finally, they will use the need to raise the debt ceiling as an excuse to blow up the economy and attempt to seek even greater, and far more unconstitutional, power in the ensuing catastrophe. This is Donald Trump 101: create a disaster, point fingers at everyone but yourself, and manipulate the circumstances for your benefit. Anyone who thinks we're living in some kind of wonderful post-Trump age is kidding themselves. Donald Trump hasn't gone away. If anything, he's more of a Speaker of the House than McCarthy is.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Which is why Biden and Senate Democrats are wise to refuse McCarthy's invitation to "discuss" the threat that he and his caucus are deliberately manufacturing. One does not negotiate with someone pointing a gun at you. You make it clear that they will either have to pull the trigger, deal with the possibility that you may be able to protect yourself, and wait until they understand that you've called their bluff.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">This is how you deal with bullies. I speak from experience. I hope that the Democrats retain and practice this wisdom. The embarrassing opening of the new House of Representatives shows that our future depends on it.</span></p>Stephen Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04248740872885333114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-779623857764606765.post-18018731456159263822022-12-31T13:48:00.000-08:002022-12-31T13:48:16.421-08:00A Few, Parting 2022 Thoughts<p>In past years, when I've come to this point on the calendar, I've usually aimed for big-picture statements about where the U.S. is, where I think it's going, and where I hope to see it go. Sometimes, I've aimed to be a little more personal, whether it's discussing my wife's immigration law practice, or the medical issues faced by one of my grandchildren. But for the most part, I've wanted to write about us. Not me.</p><p>But this year's a little different, as it may have an impact on this blog.</p><p>Not on its existence. But on its schedule. And perhaps in other ways as well.</p><p>Over the past several years, I've launched a production company dedicated to producing plays (and perhaps, at some point, films) written by members of historically marginalized communities: women, Blacks, peoples of color, and LGBQT authors. I've been working with one playwright over the past few years on a play she wrote and submitted to the Baltimore Playwrights Festival. I'm a reader for the Festival, which is how I found her play. I was very deeply impressed by it, and think that it deserves an audience. With that in mind, I have optioned it, worked with her on re-writes, found a director, and scheduled a reading of it at Theatre West in Los Angeles for next month. Needless to say, I'm very excited about doing this, even though I obviously can't say how far this venture will go. That will ultimately be up to audiences to decide. But I'm very hopeful that this one will be received, and received well.</p><p>As for the blog?</p><p>Well, depending on how things go, you may find me talking a lot more about my producing efforts, which will cut into my political commentary. Depending on how things go, I may end up setting up a second blog, so that I can keep the focus here on politics and political issues, while having a separate space for talking about producing. If that happens, I'll include a link in a post here, so that you can check it out.</p><p>But TRH, in any case, is not going away.</p><p>I'll still be here. I'll be with all of you, riding the same crazy ride we're all taking together, especially with a new GQP House that can't even choose who's going to lead it. (Spoiler alert: I have a sneaking suspicion Kevin's not going to make it.)</p><p>I'll be saying whatever I have to say, to help you make sense of all of it. And, frankly, to help myself doing the same thing. To be honest, one of the things that blogging here has done it to help me put the pieces together. It's made me read more. It's made me think more. And it's been an outlet for my passion and anger about what's going on in this country, when I've really needed one.</p><p>But, more than anything, I appreciate those of you who read it. I hope that it's been of at least some value to you. I wish all of you, and those in your lives, the happiest possible New Year, and I look forward to continuing this journey the same way we've been taking it so far.</p><p>Together.</p>Stephen Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04248740872885333114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-779623857764606765.post-74114272990379061572022-12-31T12:50:00.000-08:002022-12-31T12:50:51.765-08:00What NFL Stadiums Can Teach Us About The Age Of The Grifter<p>Professional sports, at their best and their worst, reflect the culture of the people who follow them. And yet sometimes, when I read stories about professional sports, I still find myself surprised to find details that can teach us something about where we are. As well as where we need to go.</p><p>That happened to me a few weeks ago, when I read <a href="https://www.fieldofschemes.com/2022/11/23/19390/heres-why-nfl-teams-want-smaller-stadiums-and-its-not-about-saving-fans-from-nosebleeds/">this article</a> with a counter-intuitive lead: after years of new football stadiums being built with ever-increasing capacities, they are now being planned with <i>fewer </i>seats in the stands. But, in at least one case, the same capacity in the overall structure.</p><p>How does this work? Very simple.</p><p>Fewer "nosebleed seats." More luxury boxes. And giant sports bar-style lounges, with paid admissions, and giant videos screens that show NFL action from all around the country, with every play-by-play analysis program available, as well as the game in progress elsewhere in the building. Sort of a Doctor Doom-style man cave.</p><p>Hmm, you might say. Not all that impressive. You miss the thrill of feeling connected to the action on the field, to being a real part of the live event, to being part of the proverbial "12th man" on the field. Instead, you get to be part of a glorified version of your club basement. Plus, you're being charged for the privilege of doing so. Quite a bit, in fact.</p><p>But still not nearly as much as the people in the stands and luxury boxes. They are being charged a fortune. More than the original franchise prices of the teams on the field. And, since the season tickets and boxes are largely being purchased or leased for "business purposes," <i>they're tax deductible by the purchasers and lessees</i>. You know what the real definition of "tax deductible" is? It's IRS-speak for <i>the suckers get to pay for it twice.</i></p><p>And by "suckers," just to be clear, I mean folks like you and me. Oh well, maybe not me. I won't go to the games, at least not most of them. I'll only be nicked by the "business purposes" folks. But that's plenty bad enough, when you consider we're all being nicked badly enough by these people, whose relative life of luxury is being subsidized by the folks choosing between paying the rent and dining on cat food.</p><p>Of course, television has long been the primary revenue source keeping the NFL in business. But that audience numbers in the millions, so that's not so surprising. Actual seats in the stands, on the other hand, only number in the thousands. And when there are even fewer of those seats than there were before, as is the case with any scarce commodity, you can jack up the price to exospheric levels, and still get away with charging a fortune to sit in them. More money, in fact, than you could ever get from the folks who can only afford a seat in front of a TV screen.</p><p>I'm talking, of course, about millionaires. And, even more amazingly, billionaires. We have literally millions of the former, and hundreds of the latter. Yet together, they number less than 9% of this country's total population. Putting it in practical terms--that is to say, in political terms--their dollars exponentially outnumber our votes. The money they have for entertainment purposes, such as watching professional sports, outnumber our votes.</p><p>And therein lies the central problem with our politics.</p><p>The central problem, contrary to the excessive media coverage of him, is not Donald Trump, as revolting and destructive as he is. As others have said, Trump is not the problem. Trump is a glaring symptom of a much bigger problem than the Trump circus of corruption and criminality.</p><p>We live in an age in which four decades of fiscal and monetary con-artistry has conspired to send so much wealth to the already wealthy that they can quite literally buy out the rest of the country. Even sports, one aspect of our national culture which supposedly exists to bring us all together, now exists to divide us into those who get to savor participating in the actual event, and those who get to "savor" mass-produced, flash-frozen-and-then-thawed buffalo wings.</p><p>And when the folks at the top of the financial pyramid use their goldmine to give the rest of us increasingly desperate folks the shaft, guess who really thrives in an age divided between the comfortable and the comfortless?</p><p>Con artists. Because, when work as a path to wealth becomes meaningless, people will become desperate enough to believe anyone. Even those who make promises they have no intention of keeping.</p><p>And so, contrary to what Trump's canyon-sized ego might want to believe, we do not live in the age of The Donald. We live in <a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/this-is-the-golden-age-of-the-grifter-and-there-s-a-podcast-for-every-con/">the age of the Grifter</a>. And this year has exposed it more than ever before.</p><p>The age of the Grifter is possible only because we live in the age of billionaires, people with so much money that they can buy anything, even the government and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/20/us/peter-thiel-malta-citizenship-ca.html">a new citizenship</a> to avoid their obligations to anyone but themselves. Even a pandemic can't stop their explosive growth; if anything, <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/4/6/22370351/billionaires-forbes-inequality-pandemic">it may have enabled it</a>. And why not? The COVID-19 nightmare created levels of desperation in this country that most of us have never seen, or even imagined seeing. Put yourself in the plutocrat's position. You've got hundreds of millions of desperate people, and something they need. What would <i>you </i>do? (More about that later.)</p><p>As a consequence, the sort of lifestyle, the salaries and benefits Americans took for granted in the last century can no longer be taken for granted. In fact, for some of the nation's hardest working employees, despite being routinely exposed to danger and disease, are forced to beg for the most basic rights in order to cope. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/14/completely-demoralized-us-railroad-workers-pushed-to-brink">And ultimately be denied those rights.</a></p><p>That's bad enough. But it gets even worse. </p><p>Most of the billionaires aren't the inventive class of the past. They are the investing class of the present, with an appetite for wall-to-wall public worship and the means to borrow money (not always honestly) in order to build the illusion of invulnerability. They buy businesses that are popular, built by those who have real talent, and pretend to be the source of all greatness. They are not people who were born on first base and think they hit a triple. They are people who have stolen home plate while pretending they have invented baseball. And, all too often, the incompetence that comes from a lack of experience merges with the malevolence that comes from being unchallenged, and allows a billionaire with superhuman economic power to buy a popular business and, through incompetence <i>and </i>malevolence, drive it into the ground.</p><p>I hope you recognize <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/126219c4-5ac0-4c8b-996c-307c24a4cd61">Elon Musk</a> in all of this.</p><p>Especially since Musk has already shown that, in the age of the Grifter, the Grifters have acquired enough economic power and personal will to purposefully silence the voices opposed to them, even the <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/elon-musk-twitter-ban/">ones who add value to the business</a> owned by the Grifter while he grifts it into nothingness. Indeed, many of them don't need to be deliberately silenced; if their position in society is marginal enough, even the threat of being silenced is <a href="https://playbill.com/article/washington-post-theatre-critic-peter-marks-goes-private-on-twitter-after-conservative-criticism-of-downstate-review">enough to coerce the same effect</a>.</p><p>The trend of silencing voices in opposition to the ruling class is really nothing new. It's been going on since the first presidential term of Ronald Reagan, the marginal B-movie actor who made his real fortune as a spokesperson for General Electric, a company that began with Thomas Edison and ended up splitting itself into pieces to survive. It survived him into the 1988 presidential campaign, when the focus of the DC press was not on the integrity of Republican campaigning, but on how well they were working. Thus began the era of horse race coverage of politics, which has now become the era of horse race coverage of everything. Independent news sources have been replaced by corporate ones, who make more money off of "trends" than anything else. And who now have the power to manufacture their own "trends."</p><p>This is how and why almost everyone feels so disconnected, why so few people seem to know what's going on. They don't. And they are not being helped by a media that is increasingly <a href="https://www.salon.com/2022/12/08/our-biggest-problem-isnt-or-biden-the-media-is-disconnected-from-reality/">disconnected from reality</a>.</p><p>And it therefore should not surprise anyone that, for the billionaires and millionaires, this level of disconnect creates and fosters the illusion of moral superiority. This, in turn, leads to the absence of any kind of feedback loop. And that, in turn, leaves the billionaires more and more isolated from the people who ultimately create the wealth through labor, investing, or spending. In a word, us. The result is what some of the wealthy's defenders in the chattering classes refer to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/19/opinion/columnists/elon-musk-twitter-oligarchs.html">"bossism,"</a> but what should more honestly be described by its original name. Fascism. That is, the merger of government and corporate power. It happened under Mussolini. It happened under Hitler. And yes, it can and will happen here. <a href="https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/american-nazism-and-madison-square-garden">It nearly happened here in the 1930s.</a> And there are signs around us that it could easily happen again. Let's face it: it almost happened on January 6, 2021.</p><p>You know how little the billionaire class cares about you? They're willing to bet your life that they can use your safety to maximize their bottom line. Literally. Take a look at <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/one-pilot-in-cockpit-staffing-shortage-faa-part-121/">this</a>. And ask yourself the question: in an emergency, would you want to be on a plane that had only one pilot? Would you actually <i>pay </i>to be on a plane that had only one pilot? And, perhaps key to what I've been discussing here, would you trust a profit-hungry airline to make that decision for you while keeping your safety and that of your fellow passengers uppermost in their thinking? Particularly after the recent Southwestern fiasco? I would like to think that no one would answer those questions with a "yes."</p><p>It's stories like this one, and, for that matter, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/crypto-companies-crash-into-bankruptcy-2022-12-01/#:~:text=Dec%201%20(Reuters)%20%2D%202022,to%20crash%20landing%20into%20bankruptcy.">the recent cryptocurrency collapse</a>, that expose the fallacy of the libertarian fantasy of a world with no government, which has effectively deluded people into thinking we can give everyone unlimited personal freedom, including <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/4/2140001/-Dangerous-destructive-libertarian-freedom">the freedom to not only help billionaires build fascism</a>, but even invest in a form of "money" absolutely unconnected to any real value. Money in any form, whether backed by the full faith and credit of a government, means nothing without a connection to real value. The value can be in intangibles, such as intellectual property rights and future interests in real estate. But it must be connected to something that <i>exists. </i>Cryptocurrencies, to me, have always been a form of digital riverboat gambling. That's why I've never touched them, and never will.</p><p>Libertarianism is every bit as toxic as racism. Both distort the use and acquisition of power for the benefit of a privileged few, but always in the name of "the people." This is why we live in an era in which Republicans, having built their political power over four decades with a toxic brew of libertarianism and racism, have as much political clout as they have, a clout that is utterly disproportionate to the results that power has achieved. A nation crippled with debt and disease, and a people increasingly disenfranchised from the means by which to reverse and recover their fortunes.</p><p>It also explains the so-called inflation of the present period, which is in fact <a href="https://twitter.com/alivelshi/status/1601992722705178625?s=11">price-gouging</a>. Prices don't need to be tamed by the Fed, whose raising of interest rates may in fact help to trigger not a recession, but a depression, something that may finish everyone off, even the wealthy for whose primary benefit the rates are being raised. Yes, this is what's being done by the party that denounces "big government." Small government is exactly what they <i>don't </i>want. Their dirty little secret is that they use rhetoric opposing "big government" to create exactly that--a big government that serves the interests of the few at the expense of the many.</p><p>They have done all of this while operating under the label of "conservatism," a philosophy that, in its classic form counsels heeding the lessons of history and, in the process, being mindful of the limitations that those lessons illustrate. But so powerful and brazen have they become that they are no longer pretending to be "conservative." They are <a href="https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/conservatism-no-more">openly declaring their true identities</a> as reactionaries, painters of a mythical past that never existed, but which still serves for them as the only justification for their outrageous demands for power.</p><p>When the only justification for power is a lie, the justification cannot stand forever because the lie cannot stand forever. Truth is truth, no matter how much the Trumps of the world pretend that it's Silly Putty. At some point, it always finds away out of the web of lies woven around it.</p><p>When, if ever, will people finally wake up to this?</p><p>Perhaps they already are.</p><p>Along with the Supreme Court's execrable Dobbs decision, and the rise of a new, more diverse generation of young voters Dobbs decision, it may very well have influenced the better-than-expected (for Democrats) outcome in the recent midterm elections. The lack of success by GQP election deniers on Trump's behalf would certainly seem to suggest as much. </p><p>Perhaps an even stronger indication of people waking up involves an issue that, in the post-Reagan era of politics, has been something of a third rail for progressives generally: taxes.</p><p>As the clock winds down on two successful years of Democratic control of Washington, the House of Representatives is wrapping up its work not only on its investigation of the January 6th attack on the Capitol, but also on its investigation of Trump's tax returns. You remember Trump's tax returns. They were the things people have been demanding since 2016, and that he has lied time and again about his willingness to release them, and the circumstances under which he would do so. Now he doesn't need to do so, thanks to the persistence of the House Ways and Means Committee in pursuing the release by the IRS of Trump's tax returns.</p><p>This is not good news for Republicans who tried to scare people on behalf of Trump by pushing the tax button and complaining about how the release of Trump's tax returns might lead to such "terrible" scenarios as the release of the tax returns for Supreme Court justices. Given the current makeup and output of the Court, all I could do when I heard that was to mentally respond "Yeah ... how about that?"</p><p>I'm deadly serious about that. I think everyone running for public office, federal, state, and local, should be required to put out six years of tax returns, enough to bring their tax matters within the scrutiny of the Internal Revenue Service under its statute of limitations. Maybe it would be a check on all of the principle-less con artists who think they can imitate Trump and con their way up the ladder of power. In the case of the Supreme Court, perhaps that's how we can get back to checking it with what has been historically a check on it: the court of public opinion.</p><p>And, if social media feedback counts for anything, it would appear that a significant number of people <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/gop-kevin-brady-warning-about-supreme-court-tax-returns-backfires-social-media-response-1768593">agree with me</a>. I can't be certain, but I would like to think that the real issue with taxes in the U.S. is not tax rates, but whether or not everyone is pulling their weight. I hope and pray that's the case. And Trump is all but the poster child for the willingness and resourcefulness of the rich in making sure that everyone else pulls their weight.</p><p>We know this now, because we actually have the returns. And they show that Trump is not only a financial failure, but that he has lied in a desperate attempt to avoid being an even bigger financial failure. In the process, my hope is that we all learn what a terrible price has been paid to satisfy the political need of the Republicans to make people worship the power of the rich, as well as the popular need to fantasize about how wonderful it would be to be rich.</p><p>And to satisfy both needs, we have gone out of our way to let Republicans cripple the IRS, which (like it or not) collects the tax revenue needed to pay the price tax for the civilization we take for granted. The effect is that the rest of us pay more so that those with the most get to pay less. You want evidence that the IRS hasn't been allowed to do their job? Presidental tax returns are supposed to be routinely audited by it. Guess which president's returns weren't audited? I'm going to assume you got it right, but <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/trump-taxes-irs/">here you go anyway</a>.</p><p>What must we do?</p><p>I've been talking about the need for a more progressive tax system from the time I started this blog nearly 14 years ago. Not just because we need to honestly pay our bills for the things we both want and need, instead of taking the plutocrat path of financing it through debt and sticking it to everyone else. <i>But to avoid giving the plutocrats the power to stick it to everyone else. </i>To force them to put some skin into the game they play with our country and its future. To remind them that we are all part of the same nation, and that we each have an obligation to its continued existence proportionate to what it has given us and what we are able to contribute. </p><p>And one more thing: to remind all of us that capitalism is a system that works best when you are forced to use your own money to build the dreams you want to build. It forces you to think practically, and to work with others in a manner that treats them with respect and enables them to contribute their own ideas as well, and build their own dreams. That is the difference between democratic capitalism and crony capitalism. Democratic capitalism is real capitalism: putting one's money to work. Not someone else's. Your own. We are, in fact, where we are because of crony capitalism. And, to paraphrase Margaret Thatcher, the problem with crony capitalism is that, sooner or later, you run out of other people's money.</p><p>We have gone a very long way down a very bad road. Is it too late to turn back?</p><p>I don't think so.</p><p>If I take anything away from the midterms, it's the possibility that the tide may be turning in a way that not even all of the election-related gimmickry of the GQP may be able to stop it. But that only remains true if all of us, myself included, remain involved. To whatever degree you can be. In whatever way you can be. I know that a lot of you have issues with the corporatism of the Democratic Party in the post-Clinton age. I do too. But pay the MAGA hats the compliment of doing what they've done: change the messaging of the party by burrowing into it. Get involved in your local branch of it. Organize your friends. Blog. Contribute whatever time, money, and energy you have to contribute.</p><p>And, above all, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, VOTE!</p><p>It's the only way things are ever going to get any better, without resorting to a full-scale civil war.</p><p>And maybe, one day, among other things, we'll all be able to sit together in stadiums again, and cheer for the same team.</p>Stephen Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04248740872885333114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-779623857764606765.post-44907194074667793332022-11-26T22:38:00.000-08:002022-11-26T22:38:21.137-08:00It Could Have Been Worse, But Here's How It Could Be Better<div>I've never had a harder time assessing an election in my entire life. Perhaps the best way to put it is this: never in my life have I felt so good saying "Well, it wasn't <i>that </i>bad."</div><div><br /></div><div>Because it could have been worse. Much worse. And it wasn't. Because of you. Because of all of you. Because of <i>us</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives, which means that it will, over the next two years at least, be a complete waste of taxpayers' money at best or, at worst, a nightmare that pushes back against the progress that has been made since 2020. No one should take this lightly. The incoming House majority is composed almost entirely of reactionary GQP fanatics who would rather burn the aisle than reach across it. They used the first day after the election to essentially declare war against their political opponents, including Joe Biden. </div><div><br /></div><div>And the Washington establishment's reoccurring fantasy of the past seven years still has not come true: Donald Trump has not gone away. Even though he is, slowly, slowly (dear G-d, it couldn't be any slower if it tried) being backed into a legal corner from which not even he can escape, he's hanging on. No one should even begin to underestimate his ability to hang on to the edge of the cliff, long after anyone else would have slipped away.</div><div><br /></div><div>That's the executive summary of the bad news. And yet, bad is it is, it's far from the whole story.</div><div><br /></div><div>As I'm writing this, the Democrats not only held on to their Senate majority, including all of their at-risk incumbents, but have the prospect of expanding their majority by 1 seat, which will make judicial and executive nominations far easier to approve, and to do so quickly without endless GQP obstruction. Democrats also picked up Governors, state legislatures, and wins on ballot initiatives.</div><div><br /></div><div>And while the next House majority will be Republican, it will not wield its majority power by a large margin. Right now, with votes still being counted in two congressional races, the GQP will have between 220 and 222 seats, and the Democrats will have 213. A nine-seat majority, made up in part of a handful of representatives from swing districts. Whoever the next Speaker will be, he or she may not be able to prevent some members of the majority from working with Democrats on popular issues.</div><div><br /></div><div>The red wave that was predicted came very close to washing out to sea. As it was, it was a tiny splash that left a small puddle, one that may prove to be less unsightly and dangerous than the potential consequences that all of us feared</div><div><br /></div><div>The GQP and its media allies spent, or rather, wasted an inordinate amount of time, money, and media space demagoguing Democrats and their allies on inflation, crime, and immigration, issues that are time-tested winners for them. But not this time.</div><div> </div><div>All of the messaging about inflation fell flat, which should lead all of us to question what voters really think about which party is more effective in managing the economy. Initially, it appears that <a href="https://www.editorialboard.com/the-democrats-didnt-perform-well-in-spite-of-inflation-they-performed-well-because-of-it/ ">independent voters broke for Democrats</a> on this. Why? Well, frankly, economic data has shown time and time again that the economic results during Democratic eras are far stronger than they are during Republican ones. You may not have heard that said very often by media outlets owned by Republicans (which is to say, most of them). But it is the truth. It's quite possible that <a href="https://www.editorialboard.com/the-republicans-may-have-the-house-but-the-democrats-have-the-respectable-white-people/">how independents think about inflation, in relationship to other issues, may differ</a> from the "perspective" those outlets offer.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then again, maybe, just maybe, it's time to come down to brass tacks here. Republicans have been lying about all three issues all along. Inflation is <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/global-inflation-current-rate-2022-b2110199.html">really price-gouging</a>. <a href="https://gigafact.org/fact-briefs/do-red-states-rank-higher-in-violent-crime-rates-than-blue-states">Crime is in fact worse in red states</a> than in blue ones. Biden has already <a href="https://mronline.org/2022/01/21/the-700000-club/">deported potential asylees at a record pace</a>. Even worse, <i>they know </i>they've been lying all along. They've never wanted anything but power. This is precisely why they're planning to use their wafer-thin House majority on nothing but investigations. If you want more proof of this, look at <a href="https://twitter.com/reesetheone1/status/1592886640179314688?s=11">what is actually happening to prices now</a>, in spite of the lack of a GQP plan to address them. Does it surprise you that <a href="https://twitter.com/MattGertz/status/1593331804131524609?s=20&t=Drf--aKwGfSTyvVn1Yrc1Q">the same thing is happening to the crime rate</a>? It shouldn't.</div><div><br /></div><div>What was really on the ballot, more than anything else. Democracy was on the ballot, and democracy won, hands down. Especially where it had to: <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/democrats-are-on-the-brink-of-a-historic-state-legislative-election-performance/ar-AA140vBx?ocid=winp1taskbar&cvid=6512f17357e748b494e0c0df3b19c157">at the state level</a>, in state legislatures. And this happened in spite of unprecedented gerrymandering designed to make Democratic victories impossible at both the state and congressional levels. Keep this in mind, by the way, in evaluating the Republican House victory. It literally would not have happened without gerrymandering. The delicious irony in the results is that Republicans may have <a href="https://twitter.com/patrickruffini/status/1591070534011346944?s=11">gerrymandered themselves out of better election results</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Gerrymandering. Voting restrictions. Dark money. This is all the GQP knows how to do now. And while it may help them place bodies in seats, it does nothing for them in the marketplace of political ideas. The left has had tremendous success in the last several election cycles when it comes to ballot initiatives, and this year was no exception. In Colorado, a formerly purple state that has become increasingly blue, voters for <a href="https://truthout.org/articles/colorado-votes-to-provide-universal-free-school-meals-by-taxing-the-wealthy/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=88fd16e2-cf3b-4bd6-99f5-5018ad88329c">a tax increase to pay for universal free school lunches</a>. And there was also <a href="https://truthout.org/articles/four-states-voted-to-end-slavery-but-not-louisiana-heres-why/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=88fd16e2-cf3b-4bd6-99f5-5018ad88329c">real if not perfect progress on banning slavery</a> at the state level.</div><div><br /></div><div>And then, there's the one thing that should give conservatives and their "religious" allies nightmares for decades to come. This may not have been a red wave, but this was most definitely a Roe wave. In spite of all the white men on your television screens and elsewhere trying to convince all of us that women were completely on-board with the idea of the government snatching their bodily autonomy away from them, <a href="https://twitter.com/tbonier/status/1591503215157473280?s=11">actual women who voted begged to differ</a>. It isn't just Republicans who need to heed this warning. It's Democrats as well, every time their "moderate" itch feels like it needs to be scratched. It's Democrats as well. The Roe wave, as I have said, kept Democrats within a few seats of House control, and, given the divisions within the House GQP caucus, may allow Democrats to have effective control. It also helped them hold the Senate, control of which (depending on what happens in Georgia next month) may yet expand.</div><div><br /></div><div>And if it does expand, thereby allowing executive and judicial nominations to move forward faster than they have in the past two years, Democrats should have no compunctions about doing so. There's an opportunity here to use Dobbs to build a progressive majority the way the GQP used Roe to build a regressive one. The so-called Reagan Revolution was largely based and sustained by right-wing outrage over Roe, and that outrage transformed the Republican Party, congressional races and, ultimately, the Supreme Court, which is no longer a court and does not deserve the label "supreme." Dobbs has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/19/opinion/midterm-election-abortion-roe-dobbs-democrats.html?referringSource=articleShare">already upended the voting habits of America</a> and, so long as it remains the law of the land, there's <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/abortion-rights-supreme-court-dobbs-2022-elections-democrats_n_6377b1ece4b062ba9ec6feca">no reason to doubt that it will go on doing so</a>. The only appropriate response for Democrats is to use the power voters are prepared to give them. Democrats must prove, and show, that they are willing to do so.</div><div><br /></div><div>Why should Democrats believe this? Because <a href="https://truthout.org/articles/in-every-state-with-abortion-on-the-ballot-voters-defended-reproductive-rights/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=88fd16e2-cf3b-4bd6-99f5-5018ad88329c">abortion won everywhere</a> it was on the ballot. Even in deep-red states such as <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/11/9/2134820/-To-everyone-who-declared-abortion-a-losing-issue-Kentucky-would-like-a-word-So-would-Montana?detail=emaildkre&pm_source=DKRE&pm_medium=email">Kentucky and Montana</a>. Want even bigger news on the subject of abortion? It now has <a href="https://twitter.com/markhamill/status/1589001659782672384?s=11">the potential to flip even evangelical voters</a>. They <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-evangelicals-2024_n_637732cbe4b08013a8b525cf">may be ready to flip anyway</a>, now that Trump is exposed for the fraud he has always been. There are already signs that <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/11/18/2137090/-Trump-finally-starts-bleeding-evangelical-support-but-this-time-no-one-thinks-it-s-the-stigmata?detail=emaildkre&pm_source=DKRE&pm_medium=email">even evangelical voters have finally had enough</a> of Trump. And <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/it-s-not-just-trump-midterms-show-the-religious-right-is-an-albatross-around-the-gop-s-neck/ar-AA14oNKL?rc=1&ocid=winp1taskbar&cvid=da368476f5d846e2e8fb3ffa9183f0fc">not just Trump either</a>, for that matter. Time well tell.</div><div><br /></div><div>For now, Democrats should take their success with ballot initiatives seriously, and use that combined with their wins in state races to see <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/18/opinion/midterms-states-constitutions.html">how federalism can work for them</a>, by achieving results at the state level and spend less time chasing the Washington merry-go-round. Especially now that Republicans <a href="https://ballot.org/attacks-threats/">have gone to war</a> over the ability to put initiatives on the ballot. And they have good reason to be fearful. Here's a prominent example of what a ballot initiative can do when it comes to that big GQP super-weapon: <a href="https://twitter.com/girlsreallyrule/status/1591047525125230593?s=20&t=flBbESoPijYrT7TzKmss0g">TAXES</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Perhaps above all, Democrats should finally, and once and for all, end the infighting. It makes Republicans happy and makes media ratings go up, but accomplishes nothing else. Attacks on the left from so-called "moderate" Democrats <a href="https://truthout.org/video/dems-may-lose-house-because-partys-ny-leaders-focused-on-defeating-the-left/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=88fd16e2-cf3b-4bd6-99f5-5018ad88329c">may have cost Democrats the House</a>. They're engaging in the same futile fighting-the-future that their GQP counterparts are pursuing. What makes this infighting especially foolish is the fact that <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/11/progressives-midterms-maxwell-frost-delia-ramirez-summer-lee-greg-casar.html">progressive Democrats made gains</a> in this election, just as they have in the past two elections. The generational shift that has been predicted in favor of progressive politics <a href="https://remakingmanhood.medium.com/all-the-way-to-midnight-59bceffeb303">is finally happening</a>. Fighting it is like trying to fill a funnel with water.</div><div><br /></div><div>No less a Washington and Democratic insider than Nancy Pelosi, along with Steny Hoyer and Jim Clyburn, recognized this fact and stepped down from their leadership positions, thereby giving House Democrats to put into place a new, younger, leadership team. At the same time, Pelosi, Hoyer, and Clyburn will all remain members of the House, allowing their wisdom and influence to be available to that team. They will, in fact, be able to wield behind-the-scenes influence as never before, now that they are out of the spotlight. In this arena, they have no equals among the members of the pathetic Republican caucus. </div><div><br /></div><div>And no one, absolutely no one, should think that this was <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nancy-pelosi-husband-attack-leadership_n_63789b8ae4b062ba9ec7cb54">about Pelosi's spine</a>, and the cowardly attack on her husband. The conservative columnist Cal Thomas once dismissed Pelosi as a "San Francisco Democrat" who would be eaten alive by Republicans. Wonder what he thinks today?</div><div><br /></div><div><div>So-called moderate Democrats need to wake up and understand that they're making a major mistake in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/18/us/politics/democrats-midterms.html?referringSource=articleShare">fighting the progressive wing of their own party</a>, when what they need to do is less reaching across the aisle and more uniting within their own tent. More and more, voters are able <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/10/youngkin-virginia-republican-governors/">to see the lack of moderation</a> behind so-called "moderate" policies and the "moderate" politicians that peddle them. They are, moreover, only too happy to punish <a href="https://truthout.org/articles/ocasio-cortez-says-ny-democrats-anti-defund-campaign-was-a-major-mistake/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=b938b3ee-dec4-4547-bcad-e81d84af42b9">Democrats who try to sound like Republicans</a>. </div><div><br /></div><div>You know what makes more sense? Trying to support Democrats like Jessica Piper in Missouri, who's trying to organize despairing rural voters in her state--who she refers to as "Dirt Road Democrats," or at least potential ones--to stop giving Republicans a pass on their dismal economic track record in the state. As she will tell you, <a href="https://twitter.com/piper4missouri/status/1590709823381069824?s=20&t=mJVkUm113vRPpmgtn-xjCg">it's hard work</a>, but it's absolutely essential work, because Democrats are never going to be able to win a true governing majority without finding ways to flip red states like Piper's. Likewise we need to appreciate people like <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/13/opinion/stacey-abrams-georgia-midterms.html?referringSource=articleShare">Stacey Abrams</a>, who may have single-handedly started the process of turning Georgia into a blue state, and hope that she runs again. Because the truth of the matter is that there are <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/11/13/2135948/-A-former-Republican-just-became-a-Democrat?detail=emaildkre&pm_source=DKRE&pm_medium=email">lots of Republicans ready to become Democrats</a>. We need to have faith in our ability to cut through the MAGA distortions in our political discourse, meet people wherever they're at, and talk about what Democrats can do to help them.</div></div><div><div><br /></div><div>Because we can go on pretending that we have a true two-party system, and let the system slide down history's memory hole, or we can face the blindingly obvious fact that being a Republican has been <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-only-trumpers-the-gop-rump-that-could-guarantee-democratic-wins-for-years/ar-AA14qxno?rc=1&ocid=winp1taskbar&cvid=12e679a345e14c2dd4043e1d0834ca02">reduced to meaning being a supporter of Donald Trump</a>. And we can then go about the business of saving Trump's supporters from themselves. The secret GQP sauce is to lie consistently and brazenly about Democrats and what they have to offer, leading voters to vote against them and, at the same time, <a href="https://twitter.com/TheRhinosHorn/status/1590789181097533441?s=20&t=mJVkUm113vRPpmgtn-xjCg">vote against their own interests</a>. </div><div><br /></div><div>We need to counter the lying 24/7, on not just a state-to-state level but a county-to-county level. It's especially important, in the post-Dobbs era, to reach out to women, far too many of whom still see their interests as <a href="https://twitter.com/Kate_Kelly_Esq/status/1590372133766844422?s=20&t=ZlOksrULinAh5HAqYI9LTA">being aligned with those of men</a>. There may be, in this moment, a major opportunity to break through the communications wall with many potential Democratic voters, given what appears to be the willingness of Trump's major media ally, the loathsome Rupert Murdoch, <a href="https://truthout.org/articles/murdochs-media-empire-begs-gop-to-dump-trump-after-absence-of-midterm-red-wave/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=88fd16e2-cf3b-4bd6-99f5-5018ad88329c">to dump him</a>.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Because maybe, just maybe, we have finally reached the point at which the Fourth Turning has already begun. If you've never heard of this term, take a look <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/11/10/2135066/-Has-the-Fourth-Turning-Begun?detail=emaildkre&pm_source=DKRE&pm_medium=email">her</a>e. There are, in fact, some signs of it already. <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/catholic-outlet-church-militant-says-violence-option-if-republicans-lose-midterm-elections-1758044?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1667953177">Some members of the religious right</a> are openly advocating violence, as are <a href="https://twitter.com/NoLieWithBTC/status/1590771129681342464?s=20&t=mJVkUm113vRPpmgtn-xjCg">some members of the secular right</a>. Murdoch may be willing to dump Trump, but he's <a href="https://twitter.com/harrysiegel/status/1590704053666783232?s=20&t=ZlOksrULinAh5HAqYI9LTA">still willing to spend money to lie</a> on behalf of conservatism. Just as Republican state officials are <a href="https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1591908343622545408">still willing to manipulate voting</a>. Just as <a href="https://truthout.org/articles/the-largest-political-donation-in-us-history-took-place-in-the-2022-midterms/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=b938b3ee-dec4-4547-bcad-e81d84af42b9">dark money is still a problem</a>. Ditto <a href="https://thedailyedge.substack.com/p/the-steal-that-wasnt-stopped?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web">illegal gerrymandering</a>. And do not underestimate the importance to Republicans of gerrymandering: <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/pennsylvania-democrats-state-house-majority-abortion-rights_n_636c131fe4b06d3e42571afa">outcomes in purple states show that fair maps work</a> for Democrats.</div><div><br /></div><div>Perhaps the biggest lesson for Democrats is the simplest one: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/12/us/politics/midterm-elections-officials.html?referringSource=articleShare">DON'T GIVE UP</a>. Here's a powerful reason why: <a href="https://twitter.com/reallyamerican1/status/1592356908098199552?s=11">YOUR VOTE REALLY, REALLY, REALLY MATTERS</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>And, in the meantime, the Democrats should make maximum use of the remaining weeks of their current governing trifecta. <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/11/18/2137099/-Farmworkers-from-nearly-a-dozen-states-are-rallying-in-D-C-to-urge-action-during-lame-duck-session?detail=emaildkre&pm_source=DKRE&pm_medium=email">Here's</a> a good place to start. <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/11/18/2137117/-House-GOP-proves-on-day-one-of-majority-why-Democrats-need-to-bomb-proof-everything-while-they-can?detail=emaildkre&pm_source=DKRE&pm_medium=email">Here's</a> an even better one.</div><div><br /></div><div>We've weathered one storm. We have it within our power to go beyond weathering the next one, and sailing toward clearer waters. Let's start getting everyone on board <b>RIGHT NOW</b>.</div>Stephen Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04248740872885333114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-779623857764606765.post-78388233191091117972022-11-06T13:09:00.000-08:002022-11-06T13:09:31.438-08:00... AND One Final Point<p>MAGA Republicans are Trump Republicans. Whatever they get control of will be used solely for his benefit. And the only thing he and his followers want to accomplish is to inflict pain on their opponents.</p><p>To paraphrase one of his own tag lines:</p><p>In reality, he's not for you. He's against everyone but himself.</p><p>The Democrats and their Republican/independent allies are the only thing in the way.</p>Stephen Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04248740872885333114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-779623857764606765.post-66288258848301883672022-11-06T12:58:00.000-08:002022-11-06T12:58:58.641-08:00The Case For Midterm Voting (And Whatever Else You Can Do), Part II<p>And so, now down to hours before the midterms, I come to Part II of this
message. I'm going to operate on the assumption that you have already
read <a href="https://therhinoshorn.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-case-for-midterm-voting-and.html">Part I</a>. If not, I encourage you to stop reading here, and not come
back until you've read it. It'll give you useful context for what I have
to say here. In any case, I'll sum up here what I've written in Part I by
saying that it gives an overview of the media environment in which politics in
the U.S. is practiced now, and how that environment contributes to the
existential dilemma democracy in our country now faces. Fighting that
environment, and the damage it has done and continues to do, is one key part of
the case I want to make here for making sure that you get out and vote and encourage as many other people as possible to do the same.<o:p></o:p></p><p>
</p><p>This part, however, is equally important, and perhaps is even more
disturbing and dangerous. It's not about the messengers. It's about the
message. In a philosophical sense, it's about the absence of a message,
as well as the dangerous political goal that occupies the place where a message
should be.</p><p>Up until the 1980s, elections in this country, whatever the agendas of the candidates competing in them, were predicated on a fundamental acceptance of the rules of democracy. Rules for voting in each state applied to everyone eligible to vote. All votes cast by people following those roles were counted honestly and fairly. As a consequence, there were winners and losers defined by the rules for elections as well as those of math. Everyone, even the disappointed losers, accepted and abided by the results. The winners knew that they would have to face the voters again to stay in power, while the losers knew that they would get another chance to be the winners.</p><p>We should all be proud of the fact that it worked that way, and mostly worked well, for a historically long period of time.</p><p>We cannot, however, assume that it will work that way this year. We will be damned lucky if we can get back to the point again.</p><p>Let me put it this way.</p><p>One of the things that allows the MSM, and other players in our political system, to push for the out-of-power-in-the-White-House party to succeed in midterm elections is that it carries the fairness theme of American elections to a logical point. In a democracy, even those who do not control the highest office in the land deserve to have some ability to influence the direction of governance in the nation. If fairness is your political lodestar, the power of that principle can't be denied. In ordinary times, it shouldn't be.</p><p>Again, these are <i>not </i>ordinary times. But the good news is that, if fairness is your lodestar, there is still a way to pursue it, and make it a reality.</p><p>On one side this year, you have what amounts to a coalition of Democrats, Republicans, and independents, all of whom accept the basics of government in a democratic republic. They believe in listening to and respecting each other, working together, and governing their conduct toward one another with fairness and honesty. In short, you have people who cut across all social, political, and economic boundaries, willing to do what it has traditionally taken to form a more perfect union. You don't have to take my word for this. Look at Twitter (before Elon Musk destroys it, that is), and you'll see people from all sides of our political discussion chiming in on the same basic message. For that matter, look at MSNBC, that notoriously "liberal" cable news network, and you'll see the same thing.</p><p>As for the other side? Well, in fairness to my Republican coalition partners, I won't call it the Republican side, or even a MAGA Republican side. Since it's essentially a personality cult in any case, let's call it the Trump-DeSantis side. That should make it clear enough.</p><p>And, once again, if fairness is your lodestar, you should do everything in your lawful power to prevent it from gaining even a toehold in Washington. For all of our sakes. For your sake.</p><p>Why?</p><p>I know that your time is precious, and I don't want to do a single thing to stop you from getting yourself and everyone you know to the polls on Tuesday. So I'm going to give you what in corporate circles the executive summary. It's still going to be lengthy, because it's as comprehensive as I can make it. But my hope is to get you and everyone else out the door with everything you need to know.</p><p><o:p></o:p></p><p>The Trump-DeSantis party promotes a policy agenda that is <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/world/uk-truss-tory-party/?custno=&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Weekly%2010.21.22&utm_term=weekly">recognized elsewhere as being bankrupt</a>.</p><p>Even worse, it knows this, and does not care at all, because it doesn't want Congress to make policy decisions on behalf of you and me. It wants <a href="https://www.salon.com/2022/10/05/herschel-walker-defender-i-dont-care-if-he-paid-some-skank---i-want-control-of-the-senate/">control of Congress for its own sake</a>, to enrich its backers and shaft everyone else.</p><p>It is <a href="https://twitter.com/riegerreport/status/1581001995263307777?s=11">willing to lie about its opponents </a>to get it. Especially if <a href="https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-936168772868?utm_medium=APFactCheck&utm_source=Twitter&utm_campaign=SocialFlow">one or more of the opponents are black</a>.</p><p>And the steps they will take?</p><p>Sowing division, discord, and chaos to the point of exhausting any possibility of reasoned debate, just as they <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rep-bipartisanship-republicans-want-18-more-months-chaos-n1273233">have been doing for the past two years</a>. </p><p>Making America dependent on a declining resource <a href="https://twitter.com/markjacob16/status/1577653537105903618?s=11">supplied by bloodthirsty tyrant</a>s.</p><p>Making it a theocracy where the only right to worship God is to <a href="https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/the-watchman-decree-is-a-scary-vision-of-christian-nationalism-in-action/">do so as evangelicals do</a>. Even though <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/herschel-walker-win-evangelicals-are-willing-sell-their-soul-n1299416">evangelicals don't even believe in their own values</a>. And they certainly are <a href="https://twitter.com/GrandmaBec60/status/1583193424341016576?s=20&t=n29dIA7AMXl4cwKH2It9ag">no longer pretending they aren't religious fanatics</a>.</p><p>Promoting policies that make <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/gun-violence-republican-states-rural-b2129435.html">their own states more dangerous than blue ones</a>.</p><p>And policies that, far from fighting inflation, will actually make the cost of living worse. <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3678314-senate-republican-bill-would-repeal-dem-drug-pricing-law/">Here</a> is one example. And <a href="https://twitter.com/JStein_WaPo/status/1582117151603060736?s=20&t=cPMpxKDofwfNwU7wFpy-xQ">another</a>. And <a href="https://www.politicususa.com/2022/10/17/gop-inflation-lie-exposed-as-republicans-plan-to-cut-taxes-for-the-rich-if-they-win-congress.html">yet another.</a></p><p>And, far from giving you more freedom, will <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11280379/States-SLAVERY-midterm-ballot-Alabama-Louisiana-Oregon-Tennessee-Vermont.html">give you even less</a>.</p><p>In fact, it will enable them to <a href="https://medium.com/@_EthanGrey/the-message-of-the-republican-party-dont-tread-on-me-i-tread-on-you-936037958bce">control every aspect of our lives--and yours</a>.</p><p>And to <a href="https://twitter.com/davidpepper/status/1582716930510577665?s=11">deny you any chance of using the right to vote to change</a> any of this once it becomes real.</p><p>They are, in fact, <a href="https://twitter.com/simonwdc/status/1586091192067973120?s=11">actively manipulating the polls</a> to exaggerate not only their popularity, but also the enthusiasm level of their voters.</p><p>Even worse, they have taken <a href="https://twitter.com/jbendery/status/1586088937973764096?s=11">an assassination attempt on a political leader</a>, one <a href="https://steady.substack.com/p/not-a-joke?utm_source=direct&r=ceaoz&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email">instigated by their own rhetoric</a>, and <a href="https://twitter.com/rexchapman/status/1587233470161485831?s=11">attempted to turn it into a joke</a>, and perhaps even into <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/american-firearms-association-dangerous-rhetoric-election_n_635ff1d9e4b044fae3ebda38">a springboard for more violence</a>.</p><p>Are you paying attention? Or are you just skimming through all of this and saying "So what? Aren't the MAGA politicians going to win the midterms anyway? Isn't that how this always works?"</p><p>Maybe not. In fact, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic, not only about the midterms, but also about what might lie ahead once they are behind us.</p><p>Early <a href="https://twitter.com/SimonWDC/status/1588988001748942848">Dem turnout is massiv</a>e. And <a href="https://www.nationofchange.org/2022/11/03/ralph-naders-urgent-appeal-vote-for-democrats/">even the potential "spoiler" vote</a> doesn't seem to be a problem:</p><p>And, if you need talking points to encourage others to vote, here are a few. Recent economic news is better than many had expected, with even the Fed open to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-jobs-picture-mixed-fed-policymakers-ponder-rate-hike-pivot-2022-11-04/?taid=6365719ee838ac00014ccb1f&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter">slowing down interest rate increases</a>.</p><p>And with President Biden using every tool at his disposal to fight inflation, whether that means releasing oil from our strategic reserves or <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/18/business/irs-tax-rates-inflation-2023.html?referringSource=articleShare">adjusting tax rates</a>.</p><p>And with economic <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Business/us-economy-expected-grown-significantly-ending-months-shrinking/story?id=92133670&cid=social_twitter_abcn">growth picking up again</a>.</p><p>One final point.</p><p>Conservatism in its classical form teaches the virtue of learning from the lessons of history. A short history lesson here is worth making. Historians have shown that American politics tends to swing back and forth in arcs of 30-to-40 decades. If recent trends point in a direction with regard to this, they point to an era to a 40-year era in which we took pluralism and people power off of the American agenda, and put in its place the power of Wall Street, weapons, and a warped view of Christianity that replaces God with Mammon. And all of us are reaping the disastrous results.</p><p>Maybe, just maybe, the course we've been on isn't inevitable. And, without any doubt, it's not our only choice. I'm not the only person who feels that way, that <a href="https://www.editorialboard.com/bidens-first-midterm-in-2022-is-just-like-reagans-in-1982/">our past tells us that this election may have the potential to be a healthy prologue</a>.</p><p>How about you?</p><p>You have a chance to make a difference on Election Day. You can help, and encourage others to help, change the deadly course we're on now. You can do it by joining a truly bipartisan coalition of voters who, even as I type this, are banding together to literally, in the words of the late Senator John McCain, put country first. Or, by either your actively voting for the Trump-DeSantis cabal, or staying at home and tuning out the civic rubble collecting everyone, you can prove that America was never exceptional in the first place, that it will become one more failed empire clogging up the dust bin of history.</p><p>The choice, as always, as I have said before and don't hesitate to say again, is yours.</p><p>For the next three days, I will be praying as hard as I can that all of us make the right one.</p>Stephen Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04248740872885333114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-779623857764606765.post-36642117103703469712022-10-31T12:08:00.000-07:002022-10-31T12:08:44.302-07:00The Case For Midterm Voting (And Whatever Else You Can Do), Part I<p>Today, it is eight days before a midterm election perhaps like no other in our nation's history. I'm sitting here on Halloween, hoping that the spirits being summoned by the electorate are our very best ones, the ones that put freedom and justice ahead of the darker passions that afflict the human soul.</p><p>And, honestly speaking, though I'm as sure as I am of anything when it comes to what I think American voters should do, I'm not at all confident that they're going to do it.</p><p>There's every reason to think that disaster might be lying in wait for our democracy next week. As MSM outlets are fond of reminding us all the time, the President's party gets punished in the midterms, meaning the Democrats in this case. Despite a growing economy, with growing employment, people are anxious about the cost of living, which, for a sizable number of voters, is their leading concern going into Election Day. And turnout for midterm elections tends to be on the low side, which is never good news for Democrats, always the party needing to rely on millions of votes to cancel out millions of Republican dollars.</p><p>And, to tell you the truth, if the mood of the country was calmer and more mutually respectful, it might be the case where I might view what will happen on November 8 as not the end of the world when it comes to what I and other progressives hope for from our politics. I might, depending on the state of my own life, view things through the prism that so many Americans view our politics: that of sports and entertainment. Your team loses the World Series or Super Bowl this year? It's OK. Wait until next year. There'll be another chance.</p><p>But what I fear from these midterms is not mere disappointment. It is existential dread. At times, it comes close to sheer terror when I consider the worst of the possibilities. Because this time we truly have absolutely <i>no certainty </i>that there will be "another chance."</p><p>I try to take comfort in the possibility that the polls, which suggest we're at jump-ball when it comes to who will win and who will lose, are undercounting the number of Democratic voters who would not normally make a point in coming out for midterm elections, who see the current anti-democratic trend in our nation and understand that this is no time to (pardon the cliche) make the perfect the enemy of the good. And there is some news on the early-voter front that suggests that this possibility may be a reality.</p><p>But it's a possibility. Until the votes are counted, it's an unknown. It's not the sort of trend that pollsters pay much attention to in part because it's an outlier in voting history. Pollsters owe their continued existence to being right, and, good corporate entities that most of them are, they take the more conservative approach of guidance via historical norms.</p><p>And pollsters do their work hand-in-hand with other good corporate entities which all of us collectively know as the Press. And, since freedom of the presses belongs to their owners, they likewise tend to take a conservative approach to protecting their property interests. Indeed, they will go so far as to exaggerate, or even lie about, the results of poll resorts on which they report in a manner that promotes the prospects of Republicans. <a href="https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/politics/elections/2022/10/27/early-voting-florida-republicans-lead-election/10615446002/">Here</a>, for example, is a report from a Florida newspaper suggesting that Democrats should be scared to death about a Republican lead in early voting that amounts to about <i>1% </i>of the votes cast so far. </p><p>Or even more perniciously, they will pretend that MAGA Republicans are really just "moderate" folk, no more dangerous than the next-door suburban neighbor you meet at your children's soccer matches. <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/glenn-youngkin-defends-kari-lake-endorsement_n_63441a7ae4b04cf8f370001c">As was the case in Virginia last year</a>, they can sometimes fool enough voters in a purple state with this nonsense so as to get them to vote against their interests. This may very well happen again this year.</p><p>So. November 8 may be a total disaster. Or it may not. And my own estimate of my persuasive powers is far from exaggerated. But too much is at stake to do nothing. So I will take my chances.</p><p>And I will do so as simply as I can. By reminding all of you of the reasons <i>why </i>November 8 could be at total disaster. Especially if the Republicans not only win, but win big.</p><p>Let's start with the never-ending, Diogenes-style search for the perfect, reasonable, "moderate" Republican. All you media folks out there, put down your lanterns. The search is over. And the bad news is this: there aren't any. If any of these folks were reasonable, well, they stopped being Republicans a while ago. If anything, the contemporary Republican Party is a 100% poster child for what happens to a party when it heads down the rabbit hole of extremism. Take, for example, the Federalist Society, those wonderful folks who believe in <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/10/28/opinion/originalism-is-intellectually-indefensible-says-noted-historian-about-right-leaning-supreme-court/">the nonsense of constitutional "originalism"</a> and have now, with the help of "moderate" Republicans, enshrined that nonsense in our legal system. They're not going around pretending to be "moderate." Hell, they're not even going around pretending to be <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2022/10/20/we-need-to-stop-calling-ourselves-conservatives/">"conservative"</a> anymore.</p><p>To that, let's add the reality that pollsters, while operating as slaves to historic trends, in fact are infected with enough corporatism that an increasingly large number of them operate with a bias toward Republican-flavored outcomes. These polling organizations are used in an attempt not to measure public opinion, but to openly shape it. Don't have any doubts about the reality of this; it is literally happening <a href="https://twitter.com/simonwdc/status/1586091192067973120?s=11">right now</a>.</p><p>And this should not be surprising, given the plethora of openly right-wing leaning media outlets that have always operated without any pretense of presenting an objective perspective on current events. Rather, they exist to feed an audience that pretends to want secret truths, but actually wants what even it knows on some level to be bald-faced lies, the better to grease its prejudices and narcissism. That feeding, it should now be apparent, is a never-ending process, in which each day's red meat has to be redder and meatier than it was the previous day.</p><p>The best, choicest, most succulent meat of all? Racism. Racism that went beyond the dog-whistle stage a long time ago, and is now served up on television and computer screens everywhere, without pretense of being anything decent. I could give you multiple examples but, when it comes to this garbage, you can always count on <a href=" https://twitter.com/RadioFreeTom/status/1583613594540789761?s=20&t=ejCY_2wh4jArmtOtSJXV1A">Tucker Carlson to sum it up for you</a>.</p><p><i>Why </i>do Republicans and their MAGA supporters need all of this corrupt help? <i>Why </i>does all of this meant that, if it actually helps them, November 8 will be a disaster?</p><p>Well, I called this post Part I for a reason. There will be a Part II later on this week. As they used to say in the days when broadcast programs dominated the news media environment, stay tuned.</p>Stephen Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04248740872885333114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-779623857764606765.post-33618257077911807512022-10-10T12:25:00.000-07:002022-10-10T12:25:47.553-07:00The Tragedy Of Gibson's And Oberlin<p>More than once in the course of posting here, I have written about my undergraduate alma mater, Oberlin College. As I wrote <a href="https://therhinoshorn.blogspot.com/2014/04/do-oberlins-of-world-still-matter.html">here</a>, to be a graduate of Oberlin is to be filled with a sense of pride in being part of its combined tradition of strong academics and <a href="https://therhinoshorn.blogspot.com/2015/12/oberlitionism.html">social justice</a>, while simultaneously being frustrated by its willingness to pursue the logic of the latter tradition almost to the point of self-destruction. From time to time, the college has torn itself apart over issues that, while real and worthy of debate, do not justify the potential destruction of the institution and its legacy in American society. Not only is doing so a waste of time, energy, and sometimes money, but it feeds the counter-narrative on the political right that progressivism is a nihilistic search for a "perfect" society that, in the process, threatens to destroy the society we have.</p><p>In my day, in the mid-1970s, the biggest debate was over closing a budget gap of significant proportions, and the painful choices need to be made in cutting costs (translation: laying off faculty and even whole departments) and/or seeking new revenue (translation: tuition hikes). What did the students favor? Taking money out of the endowment. Never mind the fact that the endowment was the main reason that tuition was not even higher than it already was (or much lower than it is today). I am sorry to say that the students were driven by the same Boomer optimism that would late drive Reaganomics from the right: live for today, and tomorrow will take care of itself. Ultimately, with help from a new president and a major unexpected legacy, Oberlin got through that period, and continued to flourish.</p><p>But the debate over the budget crisis underscored the inability to compromise that characterizes many Oberlin students. Nothing matters except the purity of one's views, and no quarter should be given in the pursuit of those views to their logical conclusion. Not even if that means harming the legitimate interests of those who disagree. And now, as it turns out, not even if it means a head-on collision with the truth. Or if that truth feeds the conservative narrative aimed at destroying the advancement of your views.</p><p>I am, of course, talking about the battle between the college and Gibson's Bakery, a local merchant in the town of Oberlin for more than a century, and a popular place to shop for students and residents, especially for fans of whole wheat doughnuts. It's a battle that has provided both the college and the town with more national coverage than perhaps any other story in recent decades. The coverage, and the resultant publicity, is of the sort that neither would have wanted or sought. In the process, in its own way, it has helped to fuel the political polarization that threatens to tear our society completely, and permanently, apart.</p><p>Some background: in 2016, an African-American student attempted to shoplift and use a fake ID card at Gibson's. He was pursued outside of the store by an employee, who attempted to detain him and was, in the process, assaulted by two other students who were friends of the student being pursued. The students were later arrested, and accepted a deal in which they plead guilty, made restitution, and admitted that racial profiling was not a factor in the incident.</p><p>You might think that this episode, fairly straightforward in its facts, would have ended there. But you would know nothing about Oberlin if you did so. Instead, it lead to a student protest and boycott campaign, a campaign which was aided and abetted by employees of the college, and which ultimately led to cancellation by the college of a contract between it and Gibson's for baked goods in student, as well as allegations of personal harassments of the Gibson family by various individuals. The campaign was spurred on in large part by the allegation that Gibson's had a history of discriminatory practices against Black students, and deserved to be called to account for it.</p><p>Ultimately, the Gibson family sued the College for civil damages, and in particular for libel with regard to the allegations that its members had conducted their business in a racially discriminatory manner. After attempts to settle the matter, the case proceeded to a jury trial, which was followed by a series of appeals, a process that concluded this past August with a decision by the Supreme Court of Ohio to reject the college's appeal of a lower court's decision in favor of the Gibsons. At that point, Oberlin announced that it would pay the judgment awarded to the family, which by that point (after adjustment for a statutory damage cap and accrued interest), amounted to $36.59 million. You can read the lower court's opinion <a href="https://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/rod/docs/pdf/9/2022/2022-Ohio-1079.pdf">here</a>, as well as a broader summary of the facts in the case <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibson%27s_Bakery_v._Oberlin_College#:~:text=year%20to%20shoplifters.-,2016%20shoplifting%20incident,owners%2C%20rejected%20the%20fake%20ID.">here</a>.</p><p>So, after all has been said and done in this case, stretched out over nearly six years, what's left?</p><p>Even after its expected collection of the damages, the bakery is reportedly a shell of its former self, as the boycott against it by the students is still ongoing. The college has suffered a substantial hit to its reputation and its pocketbook, although I suspect that insurance and the school's <a href="https://www.oberlin.edu/sites/default/files/content/controller/documents/reports/2021_oberlin_college_financia_statement.pdf">overall financial position</a> will ease the latter deficit. The town and its residents, which includes a significant Black population, has even more reason to resent the intrusion of the college in its day-to-day affairs. The students' concerns about racial profiling, so far as I can tell, have not been addressed in any constructive way. </p><p>And, outside of the college and town, the chattering classes in the more reactionary corners of the media have another target for use in distracting attention from their own hypocrisies. In other words, the worst people are the only winners.</p><p>How could it have been different? The first conviction that I have about all of this is that it should have been <i>absolutely, positively </i>as different, as better than this, as possible.</p><p>To begin with, the college should never, ever, have permitted any of its employees or other agents to participate in the protests organized by the students. Even the lawyers representing the Gibsons stated publicly that the students' First Amendment right to protest was not an issue for their clients. But the willingness of the campus administration to not only advocate against the Gibsons, but provide direct aid to the student protests, and to do so with being in possession of the facts, put the college on a collision course not only with the bakery, but with the town and the many other businesses in it with which the college has both direct and indirect dealings, whether buying goods directly or by supplying a market of customers (students and faculty). </p><p>Town-and-gown relationships are inherently sensitive in nature and, while they can be mutually beneficial, they require a mutual need to recognize that the maintenance of those benefits requires an ongoing dialogue about potential sources of friction, and an established process for having that dialogue. If the college and the town had such a process in place, that might have provided a means for discussing and debating the incident at Gibson's, and the issues spinning off of it. What seems clear in any case, from the way this dispute unfolded, is that no such process exists here. Had that been otherwise, it might have given everyone an off-ramp for dealing with the debate in a way that addressed merchants' concerns about crime and students' concerns about prejudice.</p><p>Second, and perhaps above all, the college should never, ever, have allowed this case to go to a jury trial, under any circumstances. It's an irony of Oberlin's geographic location that one of the most politically and culturally progressive colleges in the nation lies not only in one of the nation's reddest states, but also in one of the reddest districts in that state, a district that could practically be the political poster child for corporate disinvestment in American manufacturing. </p><p>I can sum up the reality of that in two words: the name of the district's current representative in Congress, Jim Jordan. Voters for Jim Jordan. That was the jury pool for the trial. Even if the college had a plausible defense for inserting itself into the debate over the incident at Gibson's, there was no chance of getting a jury that would be willing to hear it. To the contrary, it was guaranteed to get a jury that would salivate at the chance to strike a perceived blow against "political correctness." Gibson's lawyers, if (as I would suspect) they were experienced trial lawyers, knew that fact, and I suspect, would only have settled for a deal that treated their client very generously. I would like to think well enough of the college's counsel that they recommended such a settlement, because they were experienced enough to know that their client was going to get clocked in court. </p><p>In that case, and ruling out the possibility of malpractice, we're left to accept the likelihood that the college was willing to go to trial simply in an attempt to pacify an angry student population, hoping that the appeals process would go on long enough to position it financially for a settlement they knew in advance would be punishing.</p><p>If that is the case, and I am being fair and reasonable (as an attorney myself) in giving counsel on both sides the benefit of the professional doubt, what we are left with is the reality that Oberlin failed in what is perhaps its most fundamental obligation as an institution of higher learning: to act in the best interests of its students. Acting in that interest means not only ensuring the right and ability of students to engage in the most vigorous forms of debate, but to do so in a manner that does not, arbitrarily or otherwise, put an institutional thumb on the scale of civil discourse or, ultimately, the ability to render justice.</p><p>The fight for racial justice, as I have myself noted in this space, is built into Oberlin's DNA. It was, is, and should always be a source of pride for the college and for those who have graduated from it. In a time in which the level of racism in American society is exposed to a degree that we can no longer deny its pernicious effects, from our early history to the present day, Oberlin should absolutely be at the forefront of efforts to redress those effects and accelerate the process of our nation becoming a more perfect union. Unfortunately, I believe that it can not do so unless it starts, in a meaningful and uncompromising way, to do so in its own back yard.</p><p>Since the announcement by the college that it will pay the court's judgment against it in full, I have found myself, from time to time, visiting its Web site and reading alumni publications in the hope of finding some sign, even the smallest indication that there exists an institutional recognition of the damage that has been done by the tragedy of its relationship with Gibson's, and the need to repair that damage and find a positive path forward for all of the stakeholders. What I have seen so far is the digital and print equivalent of crickets.</p><p>Well, with one small exception.</p><p>The most recent edition of the Oberlin alumni magazine arrived at my house several days ago. In vain, I searched through its nearly 60 pages for some reference, <i>any </i>reference, to the Gibson case. Nada. Until I came to the very last page, entitled "Endquotes," a collection of quotes from various individuals in the media (social and otherwise) regarding various aspects of Oberlin life. In the middle of the first column was the following gem, a reprint of a posting on Twitter:</p><blockquote><p><i>When fascism comes to America, never forget that the elite press spent years hollering about the threat posed by utterly powerless Oberlin College sophomores rather than the threat posed by these people.</i></p></blockquote><p>By "these people," the person making the post was referencing a video of a crowed reciting the Watchmen Decree, a white-nationalist creed. For the record, I take a back seat to no one when it comes to condemning, or fighting, white nationalism in any form. And I consider it to be the greatest menace our democracy has faced.</p><p>But, in the immediate moment of reading this, I could only think of one thing.</p><p>Well played, Oberlin. Bloody well played.</p><p>I meant that sardonically. Here is a fuller description of what I felt. Oberlin has spent years (save for the occasional e-mail) pretending that the whole Gibson controversy never happened, that life at the school has largely been unfolding with first-rate scholarship, exciting student projects, and adventuresome partnerships with various organizations. And finally, now that the lawsuit is over, it sneaks in a subtlety dissenting voice about it on the very last page. It gets the benefits of innocence and retaliation all at once. How about that? I really <i>did </i>go to a school run by clever people.</p><p>Clever up to a point, anyway.</p><p>Because what the tweet overlooks is a simple fact. Whatever is true about Oberlin students in this whole sorry affair, they were anything <i>but </i>powerless. They brought one of the most celebrated and influential colleges in the United States to its institutional knees. They perpetrated a fraud on one of the best-known and best-loved businesses in the college's home town, blurring the line between institutional racism (a legitimate concern) over the reality of an actual crime which took place. They exacerbated the town-gown relationship to the point at which it may never be repaired, creating problems for the college's business needs going forward. </p><p>Perhaps worst of all, they handed a handy talking point to right-wing trolls who don't deserve to have it. Oberlin at its very best is and should be untouchable by people who live in search of distractions from their own sins. There are and will be times when moments they can turn into distractions are unavoidable. So be it. All the more reason to not, in the immortal formulation of Richard Nixon, hand them a sword. But that's what Oberlin students have done.</p><p>I understand that I'm wading into a situation where feelings on both sides are very raw. But that's why I'm wading into it. We live in a society where people who care only about wealth and power use the raw feelings of others as raw material to create distractions from the larger forces that are threatening our democracy. They may be a lot closer to success than many of us think. Those of us who care about creating a just and prosperous society for everyone don't have the time, or otherwise the luxury, for internal conflict. To paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King, the fierce urgency of now has never been fiercer. Or more urgent.</p><p>So, if you've made it this far, just hear me out for a little while longer.</p><p>What I am pleading for is an effort by Oberlin's administration, Oberlin's students, and Oberlin's business community to come together in a highly visible way, with candor, with humility, and above all with a total commitment to hearing each other, understanding each other, to meeting each other's needs without compromising anyone's legitimate concerns, and to finding ways forward that will prevent a repeat of this tragedy from ever happening again. And this effort, as well as all aspects of it, should be as publicly visible and accessible as possible.</p><p>This will require creativity. It will require transparency. And it will require more good will than probably exists among the various stakeholders at this point. But it is utterly essential that it happen. Not just for the future of Oberlin--the college, and the town that has been its home for nearly two centuries--but for the larger example of how all of us should live that Oberlin represents at its best. For whatever it is worth, I would be proud to be a part of any such effort, in any way that I can.</p><p>Because I know it can work. As I have documented <a href="https://therhinoshorn.blogspot.com/2015/10/on-other-hand-conservatives-arent-alone.html">elsewhere</a> in this space, I've seen it work at Oberlin previously.</p><p>And I believe it can work again. For all of our sakes, it has to.</p>Stephen Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04248740872885333114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-779623857764606765.post-36326650809509314402022-09-30T20:33:00.000-07:002022-09-30T20:33:32.592-07:00 Banned Books, Corrie Ten Boom, And "Christian" Hypocrisy<p>In an age in which technology has made the spread of information and culture easier and wider than ever before, it would be difficult to imagine a more futile tactic to control political debate and thought than the banning of books in schools. Almost every student, including many of very limited means, has access to a smart phone and/or a laptop, as well as Wi-Fi. Any book that book-banners want to target, especially older ones that are more likely to be in the public domain, is available on the Internet. That fact, combined with the reality that banning children from doing anything is the proverbial red cape in front of a bull, all but guarantees that the act of banning a book is perhaps one of the best ways to market it.</p><p>And perhaps that's a source of comfort in contemplating, as we unfortunately must, the current wave of efforts to do exactly that. If book-banning is the worst thing they can throw at the rest of us, maybe democracy is in better shape than we think. Perhaps there's a silver lining in this particular crowd: by advocating the banning of books, they forfeit the moral authority to complain about what they decry as "cancel culture" coming from the left. After all, lacking that authority won't stop them from whining about it.</p><p>But, in a way, that's the problem. It's not the tactics they put into practice. It's the sheer stupidity that lies behind their world view AND permeates the way they act on it.</p><p>What made me reflect on this just now was <a href="https://twitter.com/Oliver_wine/status/1567099055079145476?s=20&t=s7jhAnrJcBFFXg4lHKwa6A">a Twitter post I saw</a> several weeks back that contained a photograph of a newspaper clipping. The clipping showed part of an article that listed books currently being targeted for school bans. The usual suspects can be found on it: "Of Mice And Men," "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings," and that legendary target of targets, "To Kill A Mockingbird." The reference to the latter, however predictable, was at least punctuated with a ludicrous misspelling of its author's name as "Lee Harper." Isn't it nice when your opponents go out of their way to advertise their lack of credentials?</p><p>But that's not even the worst of it. At the bottom of the list, at least what I could see of it from the posted photograph, was the title and author's name of a book I could not ever have imagined being on anyone's list for banning.</p><p>"The Hiding Place," by Corrie ten Boom.</p><p>If you are not a fundamentalist Christian, as I was in a former life, the odds are that you have never heard of this book, or the film version of it what was made by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in the 1970s. Nor is it likely that you have ever heard of Corrie ten Boom, or know anything about the remarkable life that she lived, or read any of the other books that she wrote.</p><p>But dwell on this thought for a moment: most if not all of the folks behind these bans <i>are </i>fundamentalist Christians. If they are at all like the ones I was associated with during the decade or so that I spent in that corner of reality, it is literally impossible for them to <i>not know </i>about the life of Corrie ten Boom, and especially the chapter in that life memorialized in "The Hiding Place." Even if they had never read the book. And in that world, the folks I know would have wanted to brag about reading it as much as they would brag about the time they spent reading their Bibles.</p><p>In "The Hiding Place," Ms. ten Boom relates the story of how she, her sister, and her father used space hidden by their father's timepiece shop to hide Jews in Holland fleeing persecution from the Nazis. In the process of doing so, they saved many lives, but that effort came at a cost to the ten Boom family. They were eventually discovered and taken to a German work camp, where Corrie's father and sister died. She herself only survived as a result of a clerical error made by one of the camp's staff members.</p><p>As a record of one of the darkest chapters in human history, "The Hiding Place" contains some passages that might make for rough reading for teenagers, and perhaps a few adults. But it is both morally and intellectually outrageous to suggest that the contents of the book are such that schools and students should somehow be "protected" from them. All the more so because the book is, and was intended to be, a tribute to the core, sacrificial spirit of true Christianity. For a believer to walk in Jesus' steps, that should include a willingness to include the willingness to walk in <i>all </i>of those steps, even the ones that require acting against our interests to give unto others.</p><p>Or so I was told, back in the day.</p><p>Maybe fundamentalist Christianity isn't what it used to be. Or rather, what it used to aspire to. As it has morphed from a faith based on the Bible to one that is based increasingly on white supremacy, maybe making sacrifices for people "not like you" is a message that frightens fundamentalists.</p><p>Maybe they have decided that the ten Booms were out of step with G-d. Somehow, up in Heaven, I think the ten Booms, and the people they sacrificed to saved, are having the last laugh on that point.</p><p>But the rank hypocrisy of their fundamentalists that this exposes, combined with the racism that has infected the faith they claim to follow, just adds two more reasons to the list that all of us ought to have: the list of reasons to fight the banning of books, and the attack on the human spirit that these bans represent.</p>Stephen Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04248740872885333114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-779623857764606765.post-52462822350766609452022-09-30T15:54:00.004-07:002022-10-03T11:21:55.135-07:00No, We Don't Have Open Borders But Yes, We Need AND Can Handle More Immigrants<p>One billion Americans. To listen to the conservative chattering classes, you'd think that's a landmark we've already reached.</p><p>Well, we're not even close to it. We're only about one-third of the way there, in fact. And yet, if you listen to the Rupert Murdochs and Alex Joneses of the world, America is being "invaded" on a daily basis by a criminal class of migrants who want nothing more than to take your jobs, assault your families, and generally live off of your hard-earned tax dollars.</p><p>But what if I told you that we don't have enough people here?</p><p>What if I told you that their are two nations in the world that are already at one billion people living within their borders? Both of which are two of the oldest civilizations on the planet, in fact? </p><p>And what if I told you that, while both nations have struggled with issues relative to population growth, both of them have been catapulted into the top ranks of the world's economies over the past several decades?</p><p>And what if I told you that, in order for the United States to maintain its current ranking among those economies as the largest, we might need to get bigger in a hurry? And that the fastest way to do it would involve implementing an immigration system that welcomed people from all around the world at an accelerated rate? Maybe we wouldn't reach a population level comparable to China and India, the two nations I was referencing, but we might be surprised by our ability to quickly expand the current population by as much as 50%.</p><p>And what if I added that, because of the hollowing-out of cities in every state of the Union, especially in the central states, there was already more than enough room to house these people? Furthermore, what if I pointed out what should be an obvious fact to everyone: people are an economic resource, with talent and financial resources? The initial cost of welcoming hundreds of millions of new Americans would be more than repaid by the value of the goods and services these new arrivals would provide, not only to their neighbors but to family and business members overseas, who would now have a way to participate in the American economy. It's been said by some that immigration is the most effective foreign policy the U.S has ever established. It's been said, because it's the truth.</p><p>And, finally, what if I made the point that, in order for America to stay on top of the international economic pyramid, it needed to become bigger, perhaps even as big as China or India, in order to not merely stay on top but also to stay relevant to global commerce?</p><p>Well, it turns out I may not have to do any of this, because Matthew Iglesias beat me to it some time ago. To be precise, 2020.</p><p>That was the year in which his book, "One Billion Americans," was published. I bought a copy a while ago, and it has not yet risen to the top part of my reading pile that it deserves to have. But it will get there. In any case, I have practiced immigration law for more than twenty years with my wife, and both of us can speak to the truth of what Iglesias writes about in his book.</p><p>You can find a summary of its contents <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Billion_Americans">here</a>, along with excerpted criticism (positive and negative) of those contents. Essentially, he makes the points about the advantages of expanded immigration that I've already outlined.</p><p>Unsurprisingly, and despite the current polarization in American politics (on this issue especially), this book has, after a flurry of initial publicity, largely sank from sight. Or, at least, it did not move to the central place in the immigration debate that its provocative thesis might suggest it should. For my part, I think that this is an example of how our current polarization prevents us from having anything like a reasoned discussion of ideas, their merits, and the feasibility of translating them into policy. </p><p>After all--and yes, this is not the first time I've made this point, but I'll keep making it until it sinks into enough heads that I can finally think about retiring--thinking about, debating, and translating ideas into reality is actual, honest-to-goodness <i>work</i>. And <i>work</i> is something we've all become a bit allergic to in the age of ultimate personal convenience. Far better to lie back and take potshots at each other. Less wear and tear on brains we don't want to use anyway, and more visceral fun in our increasingly sensual, visceral world.</p><p>Immigration could, in fact, go a long way toward filling the empty neighborhoods that are the hallmark of far too many metropolises, suburbs, exurbs, regional centers, and small towns. At a time when we seem finally, however reluctantly, ready to fix our crumbling infrastructure and modernize it for a digital age, we could put actual <i>people </i>into those spaces and set them free to live their lives and generate new wealth. In my home town of Baltimore, the population has shrunk over 70 years from a peak of just under a million to its current level of just over 600,000. Right there, room enough for more than 300,000, perhaps even more.</p><p>We could, if we wished, have a national debate about both the feasibility and the desirability of implementing a vision like the one Matthew Iglesias outlines. But that would require a minimum of two major political parties with a commitment to issues and their resolution, and, above all, an overriding commitment to the national interest that was greater than the pursuit of political and/or personal gain. It would, in short, require the pursuit of what we all have long taken for granted to be the American Way.</p><p>But the American Way can no longer be taken for granted. We have only the two political parties that have domination the national landscape for the past 160 years. And one of those parties, the Republican Party, is no longer a party of ideas. This is so transparently obvious that it is no longer a partisan statement to make. Even many longstanding members of the party, and its supporters in the larger conservative movement, many of them priding themselves on being people of ideas, will affirm that point. It is a cult. </p><p>It is a cult that worships Donald Trump not simply as a political leader, but as a quasi-religious (maybe not even quasi-) leader chosen by G-d to make America "great" again. By which they mean "white, male, straight, and Christian." This cult has been a key part of the Republican coalition for at least 75 years but, for most of that time, it has been suppressed and manipulated by conservatives whose politics runs to the protection of American business and military interests. Those conservatives, in a world following two financial meltdowns and two disastrous wars of choice, no longer hold sway. The bigoted bullies run the Republican playground, and all their games are ones of prejudice.</p><p>But prejudice is a pursuit that always wears a series of disguises. In the 1960s, it cloaked itself in the mantle of "states' rights," and, in this guise, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/migrant-relocation-efforts-take-page-out-of-reverse-freedom-rides-2022-9">ran reverse Freedom Marches</a> in which Black Americans were bused to northern cities, based on dishonesty and manipulation, in an effort to demonstrate to the liberal northerners that "these people" were nothing but trouble, and Northerners were rank hypocrites for advocating on their behalf.</p><p>And, just as they were afraid of people of color "ruining" their "American" way of life, so they are now afraid of Latin American people of color "invading" the sovereign territory of a nation that began when their white ancestors invaded this continent. And so deprived are they of anything that could be called creative that they are, to act on their fears, compelled to trot out old tricks.</p><p>I am, of course, talking about the recent publicity stunts pulled by Republican governors in Texas and Florida to ship immigrants to northern states, again using fraudulent means to do so, including the use of money to pay for the needs of these people in their arrival states, and shipping them to blue states in the north where they expect liberals to be shocked, horrified, and otherwise expose the rank hypocrisy that wingers are convinced liberals possess in unspeakable volumes.</p><p>Indeed, the Murdoch press was so confident that this obscene use of human beings as political props was such a political winner for them that it openly bragged about the "success" of these efforts in Murdoch's first media purchase in this country, the perpetually money-losing New York Post. Oh, did I mention that Murdoch was an immigrant? Indeed he is; the sort of white, male, straight immigrant that Trumpers wish they could be.</p><p>When it comes to immigration, he's only too happy to use his sob sisters to billboard his hypocrisy. <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/09/15/with-marthas-vineyard-meltdown-maybe-dems-finally-get-immigration-problems/?utm_campaign=iphone_nyp&utm_source=mail_app">This one</a> is utterly laughable, especially the cheap shot at the not-so-cheap cost of housing on Martha's Vineyard. As if a man who can afford as many wives as Murdoch has had can afford to sound like a Bolshevik on the subject of housing. (And what does the last sentence even mean, anyway?) On the other hand, <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/09/16/migrants-arrival-sets-off-a-white-liberal-meltdown-in-marthas-vineyard/">this one</a> is even worse, as though the author was on drugs. It goes so far as to admit several of the criticisms of Republican governors--e.g., treating the migrants "like cattle," and not even telling anyone, including the migrants, where they were going--and basically says "SO WHAT! WHO CARES? IT'S ALL ABOUT OWNING THE LIBS, THEIR WEALTH, AND THEIR VIRTUE-SIGNALLING!"</p><p>See how easy it is to be a Murdoch employee? I just gave you a one-sentence taste of the content, so you want have to drown in the sludge of reading, unless you're a gluttons for punishment. I guess the idea is that, if you keep screaming about "the libs" over and over again, you can still make money by overlooking the facts. Which, in Murdoch-world, is a cherished way of life. No one earns money working for Murdoch; they just help him steal it.</p><p>Because here's what <i>really </i>happened on Martha's Vineyard.</p><p>Despite the effort to blindside them, the people on the island organized quickly to get their unexpected visitors oriented, welcome, and provided with what they needed in supplies and information. Which, all by itself, is quite a bit more than they got from the supposedly "Christian" folks in the states from which they came. You can find out more about the specifics of that effort <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/marthas-vineyard-shrugs-center-political-debate-focus-helping-migrants-rcna47978">here</a>. I think you'll find it to be more inspirational and, in any case, more real than anything you'll get from the New York Post.</p><p>Including this little tidbit: part of the reason the effort on Martha's Vineyard was so spontaneous and so lacking in friction is the fact that the island, despite being synonymous with wealth, <b>has a homeless population that it works to serve on a regular basis</b>. So much for clueless, out-of-touch "libs." If they were "triggered" by anything, they were "triggered" by compassion, by understanding the needs of people from different backgrounds, by a willingness to use their own resources to make a difference in the lives of others, and by all of the above <i>without regard to race, creed, or color</i>. Those are the things that makes liberals what they are. Including me. Murdoch and his "minions" are welcome to get over it.</p><p>Instead of doing that, however, when the facts blew up their coverage of their sadistic publicity stunt, they had the colossal gall to complain about the coverage of the detonation from other media outlets. Priceless example: Brian Kilmeade, Fox's media critic, going on "Fox and Friends" to complain (in his words that <a href="https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1570750070752186369">"[t]hey're not covering it the right way."</a> In other words, not the way Fox wants.</p><p>In fact, it is Fox, and the Murdoch empire in general, that isn't covering it the right way. And that failure is by no means limited to the tone of the reception the migrants received at Martha's Vineyard.</p><p>It's also limited to the circumstances of the migrants themselves.</p><p>These are people fleeing political persecution, including persecution from Communist governments, like Venezuela and Cuba. On foot, no less. If they are not coming from there, they are coming from nations suffering from extreme poverty due to a combination of climate change and political/economic meddling by American conservatives. In any case, I thought the good Republican thing to do with people fleeing Communist governments was to welcome them with open arms, and only then treat them like political props. Why were these people shipped from, in some cases, Florida? Why not transport them to Miami, where there is a prosperous Cuban exile community that should be ready, willing, and eager to welcome these people with open arms? Or have I touched a third rail there that no one in the Republican Party wants to touch? It's not as if the Republican Party is full of stand-up people who put their constituents first. I'm talking about, among others, you, <a href="https://twitter.com/grassrootsspeak/status/1571328954367381506?s=11">Ted Cruz</a>.</p><p>And worst of all: these people were systematically lied to. By the Republicans packing them into the buses and the planes. They were told that there would be jobs awaiting them. And they were being systematically being given false information about who to contact regarding their change in venue. This included people who were expected <a href="https://twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1570803548501446661">to appear before immigration officials <i>the following week</i></a>. These were people doing exactly what so many immigration restrictionists claim they want immigrants to do: work within the system. Except for the fact that restrictionists only want to use the system to prevent people from navigating it.</p><p>There is no such thing as an "illegal" person, but the victims of this shameful political stunt are especially not so. They are asylees. They are entering the United States under color of law. Asylum is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_asylum#:~:text=The%20Preamble%20of%20the%20Constitution,in%20the%20cause%20of%20freedom%22.">one of the most ancient forms of lawfully permitted immigration</a>, recognized in international law which, like it or not, is recognized in American law.</p><p>And borders, for better or for worse, are not open. Attempts by would-be migrants to enter the U.S. without inspection are actually being repelled at a higher rate under Joe Biden then they were under the crook that preceded him in office. <a href="https://twitter.com/notminenoway/status/1571060154207985664?s=11">Take a look.</a> Don't believe it? Here it is from <a href="https://twitter.com/jarringcreation/status/1570963187834720256?s=11">someone living on the border</a>. Here it is from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/19/us/politics/us-border-arrests.html?referringSource=articleShare">a real news outlet</a>, one that doesn't engage in the kind of sucking-up that Murdoch does. Like the meme says, literally the opposite of "open borders." This is why Biden's words on the subject of immigration, <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/white-house-plane-migrant_n_63237753e4b027aa406406e4">and the Martha's Vineyard fiasco</a>, should be heeded rather than derided. He is doing a far better job than he is credited with doing. And, in doing so, he is underscored an important truth ahead of the midterm elections: Democrats work lawfully to solve problems, while Republicans work unlawfully to exploit them.</p><p>It's precisely because of that exploitation that <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-biden-asylum-seeker-buses-remarks_n_6324ed96e4b046aa023f6bf8">more needs to be done</a>, not only by Biden, but by Congress, which has for decades abdicated its constitutional responsibility to provide a fully resourced, safe, and orderly immigration systems that meets the needs of our nation AND fulfills the American dreams and hopes of millions of people around the worlds</p><p>And Democrats need to get out of their perpetual defensive crouch of this issue and help him. Our obligation to that law, the traditions that lie behind it, the nations with which we mutually rely, and to the better parts of our own national history as a Republic that developed out of our status as a refuge for others, demands of both political parties that they make safe, lawful immigration for honest, hard-working future citizens not just a political priority, but a national reality that can renew thousands of empty communities all over America, while affirming our commitment to expanding the reach of freedom and justice for all.</p><p>Maybe the backfiring of the Abbott-DeSantis stunt will help.</p><p>Maybe we should <a href="https://twitter.com/sbaker209/status/1571920753779433472?s=11">take the money we give their states</a> to help immigrants, and give it to the states that acutally help them. Let's see them try to balance their budgets after that. Guess they'll have to steal more from that pot of "welfare reform" money that they get every year. But more on that later.</p><p>You want us to take your migrants? Sure. We’ll take your migrants. And we won't stop there.</p><p>We’ll take your rape and incest victims, the ones that your draconian new abortion laws. And the LGBQT kids you want to pretend don't exist. We'll take all of the businesses you think are too "woke," (which, deep dark secret, is the overwhelming majority of them). We'll take all of the educated people who will welcome the opportunity to not have to pretend anymore to be dumb. We'll take all of the creative people whose work and points of view terrify you to death. Best of all, perhaps, we'll take all of the jobs that come with all of these people.</p><p>We’ll take the people you seen as problems. Because we see them as people. Because that’s the American dream. To see people as a source of promise, not problems. And to put them, and not money, in charge of our future.</p><p>Personally, my hope is that, when Wes Moore is elected governor of Maryland, and this state once again finally has a real governor, he'll make a point of working with Biden to make Baltimore the biggest, best, most diverse, most prosperous sanctuary city in the nation. As I have said, we've easily got room enough for at least 300,000. <i>At least.</i> And I'll bet we have room enough to welcome even more than that. Just in time for the Orioles to become a decent team again! Think of all the new types of ballpark food we'll be able to enjoy.</p><p>No, we don't have open borders. But we do need to open up our system, our country, and our lives to the people who are ready, eager, and willing to help us build an even bigger, better America that we've ever had in the past. And we need to do it before some other, less deserving and more politically nimble nation reads Matthew Iglesias' book, and takes his vision as seriously as we should.</p>Stephen Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04248740872885333114noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-779623857764606765.post-59206019876649893242022-08-30T21:31:00.000-07:002022-08-30T21:31:19.329-07:00Preparation For A Miracle<p>I fully expected August to be a cruel month, politically speaking. I have to admit, however, that I did not expect to be tough on Republicans. The media drumbeat in their favor has been going on now for months. Midterm elections are coming up. The party out of power has, historically speaking, always done well in the midterms (or almost always). President Biden has had his early popularity largely destroyed by a series of events not completely within his control, from the Afghanistan exodus to the rising cost of living to the unwillingness of too many people to respect pandemic science for the sake of a highly narcissistic and, quite frankly, unpatriotic interpretation of the word "freedom." Democrats, seemingly always looking for a way to justify the meme about their being in "disarray," started talking about alternative presidential candidates for 2024. And, hovering over all of this is the specter of Donald Trump, unwilling to accept defeat, but utterly willing to destroy the Republican Party and perhaps the Republic itself in order to "prove" that he is not what he always will be: a loser.</p><p>And then, August happened. And, suddenly, the seemingly pre-ordained public narrative flipped, at least to some extent.</p><p>Largely led by the price at the pump, the cost of living began to ease up. The post-Dobbs effect on the generic ballot has almost entirely been in the favor of Democrats, with the rejection of the anti-abortion referendum in the reddest of states, Kansas, illustrating that effect on a granular level. The Senate may very well remain blue, and even become bluer, while any control the Republicans gain in the House of Representatives will be small enough to stop them from doing much more than wasting time and other resources by conducting investigations against their opponents that are destined to go nowhere. The pandemic, which has not ended, has become easier to manage as more people are slowly but surely getting vaccinated and normalizing health protocols in their day-to day lives.</p><p>But, perhaps most amazingly of all, and despite the pressures to behave to the contrary, the Democrats found the discipline and, perhaps, the courage in the face of the Trump menace to find themselves suddenly in array. So much so, in fact, that Biden and Congress managed to get together and produce a series of bills, in a remarkable short time span, that address a number of urgent problems facing the nation, almost as Presidents and Congresses used to routinely do.</p><p>The first step in decades to regulate the sales of firearms. Urgently needed health care for veterans. The repatriation of the computer chip industry. And, finally, a reconciliation bill that launches a green economy, strengthens the ACA, and stops corporations (for the most part) from living tax-free. On top of all that, more recently, Biden's honoring of his promise to reduce student loan debt.</p><p>But, as Lord Kenneth Clark once pointed out, find words butter no parsnips. There is a lot that has been left undone. As passed, the reconciliation bill left out major portions of Biden's Build Back Better agenda: child care, affordable housing, paid family leave, and free community college. Moreover, the continued legislative pestilence of the filibuster rule prevented Democrats from making any progress on voting rights, or reinstating reproductive rights.</p><p>None of these causes will advance at all if Republicans gain control of at least the House. But, to be a dreamer, what if they don't?</p><p>And, even if they do, isn't it just as well to have an agenda ready to go, so that, when the Republicans' inquisition against Democrats grinds to a halt, you're prepared to provide America with an alternative? <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/26/opinion/democrats-midterms-agenda.html?referringSource=articleShare">I'm not the only one</a> that thinks so.</p><p>Democrats' recent legislative successes suggest that they may have finally learned the virtues of <a href="https://www.liberalleadershipleague.org/post/sell-the-brownie-not-the-recipe">"selling the brownie and not the recipe,"</a> i.e., focusing on where you want to take the country, and not the details of how to get there. If (may it be your will, G-d) the next Congress is completely under Democratic control, I have two major suggestions for fashioning an agenda.</p><p>First, and in conjunction with reproductive rights legislation, I would take all of the child-friendly provisions of the failed BBB legislation, including and especially the child tax credit and the provisions for paid leave, and bundle it into a Family and Child Care Act that promotes "family unity and strength." After that, I would take the BBB's housing and education provisions, again in conjunction with the PRO Act, and bundle them into a Worker's Rights Act that "protects the ability of workers to live decently and better their lives." I would make these two bills the centerpieces of the nation's domestic agenda, and push the living daylights out of their chances to make it across the finish line. </p><p>Preparation for a miracle? Perhaps. But, as this August has already shown, miracles are not beyond the realm of possibility just yet. And, given the dangers still lurking around the corners, there may be advantages in preparing for one.</p>Stephen Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04248740872885333114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-779623857764606765.post-91656264960034943332022-08-30T15:29:00.001-07:002022-08-30T15:29:44.007-07:00... But First, A Word Or Two About Last Weekend<p>It's not my style to heap praise on a hedge fund manager, especially one who's had brushes with the law as part of his resume. But there's a small lesson about capitalism that can be learned by way of the management styles of the former and current owners of the New York Mets.</p><p>I adopted the Mets as my "other" favorite baseball time when I moved to New York a bit over 43 years ago. As an Orioles fan, I couldn't stand the Yankees, especially the Yankees' then-owner, George Steinbrenner, and the Mets seemed so perpetually hapless (with the ironic exception of their 1969 World Series defeat of the Orioles) that I felt they were worthy of my support. It seemed like an easy and sensible way to identify, from a rooting perspective, with my new home town.</p><p>As circumstances in my life changed, however, New York did not remain my home town for more than a few years. But, in that time, a few things had changed: not only the ownership of the Mets, but their management as well. The new owners brought in Frank Cashen, a former Orioles general manager, to rebuild a club that had spent three seasons in last place. And Cashen rebuilt the Mets the way he had helped to build the Orioles: one prospect, trade, and free-agency signing at the time. It took him five years to return the team to respectability, and two more after that to get them to a World Series win. But he, and the team he put together, did it. And so, even though I had long since left Queens, part of my baseball heart has remained in Flushing, even after Shea Stadium was replaced by Citi Field, a replacement that itself was the outcome of yet another change in ownership.</p><p>That change, by which minority owner Fred Wilpon bought out the interest in the Mets of Nelson Doubleday, whose publishing company had acquired a majority stake in the team, enabled Wilpon and Saul Katz to take charge of running it. That is to say, of running it into the ground, for it soon became clear that Wilpon did not have the financial resources to operate a major-league team in a baseball era of nine-figure payrolls. Nor did he have the acumen to manage the resources he had, a lack that can best be summed up in two words: <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/christianred/2021/04/16/the-new-york-mets-franchise-paid-a-heavy-toll-for-fred-wilpons-and-saul-katzs-ties-to-bernie-madoff/?sh=314342b93c80">Bernie Madoff</a>. Finally, and perhaps most crucially, Wilpon lacked the ability to understand that a sandlot-level appreciation of baseball did not translate into the ability to manage a major-league franchise. Professional baseball is precisely that: a profession. It requires people who have operated in it at a professional level to understand how it works. Wilpon never appreciated that. He made it clear in many heartbreaking ways that he respected no one's decision-making ability except his own. Why not? He was rich. Why should you question him?</p><p>And here's where we start to get a wee bit political. If you're wealthy, there are basically one of two ways that you can look at that circumstance. You can go through life taking the L'Oreal approach and tell everyone you're worth it, and watch your wealth fall about as you continue to seal yourself inside a willingness to learn nothing. Or you can remember that wealth, great or small, is based on a consistent ability to make good business transactions over time. It may not make you famous, but the financial security is much better. And the key to developing and maintaining that ability is to pay attention to what is going on around you. To listen. To understand what people want. And then, to find ways to give it to them.</p><p>Unfortunately, we now live in a world in which wealth is so concentrated in its ownership that those who have it no longer need to feel a need to listen to anyone except themselves. This is something that every consumer can see in his, her, or their everyday life. Fewer goods. Fewer places to shop. Fewer companies to work for. Even in an age in which entertainment/communications options seem to be exploding, the control of those options is limited to a handful of companies. Result? Our options consist of retreads of sequels of remakes of stuff you've already encountered in one form or another. In other words, safe choices. Safe, that is, for the interest of those at the top who make them.</p><p>Given all of this, Cohen, whose Wikipedia page describes him as the 30th richest person in the United States, and also as someone who business practices have led to a criminal rap sheet, does not seem like someone who would be a good example of someone who pays close attention to those who have less money than he has.</p><p>But his ownership of the Mets, thus far at least, has told a very different tale.</p><p>He has only owned the team for less than two full seasons, but, unlike Wilpon, he has managed to avoid making every mistake in the book. He has hired professional management with actual, professional baseball experience. He has listened to the people he hired when they told him to spend more up-front money than he was comfortable with spending at first. He has even gone so far as to swallow the cost of a player contract inherited from the Wilpon days, when his baseball people told him that it was the best baseball decision to make. The results in this summer's MLB standings speak for themselves.</p><p>And, perhaps most crucially, he has listen to the voices of the fans, fans who have decades of burn marks on their fandom from the Wilpon years. He asked them what they wanted from him. They told him they wanted to bring back Old Timers' Day, an occasion the Wilpons had allowed to lapse for 28 years.</p><p>When I heard that this was happening, and that it would happen on a weekend when I happened to be with my wife in New York, I was both astonished and pleased by the coincidence. But I was far more astonished--and disgusted--when I learned about the 28-year lapse. <i>Twenty-eight years! </i>This is a sport that celebrates its traditions and the players who built them to the point where it builds them into its marketing. This is at least true in the case of the better-run teams. For a long time, as I have said, and despite being in the nation's biggest market, the Mets were not one of those teams.</p><p>But I went to the Old Timers' Day event at Citi Field, and stayed for the regular Mets game afterwards (which they won, 3-0). And, to put it mildly, while using a word that comes up often in the context of the Mets, I was amazed.</p><p>There were Mets players, managers, and coaches from every era of the team's 60-year history, even going back to its first seasons at the Polo Grounds. (The <i>Polo Grounds</i>! It was almost enough to make me reach for a <a href="https://www.pinterest.com/pin/312015080427221529/">Knickerbocker beer</a>!) There were Mets I had seen at Shea during my New York days, and there were Mets I had seen only on television, up until now. In particular, I got what might be my last in-person chance to see one of my favorite Mets I had seen at games I attended, John Stearns, who has been battling prostate cancer. As a two-sport athlete (baseball and football), he had a reputation for toughness that his appearance on Saturday only reinforced.</p><p>And then, the unexpected announcement that Willie Mays' uniform number 24 would finally be retired, as had been promised to him by Joan Payson, the original principal owner of the franchise, when she acquired him from the San Francisco Giants so that he could finish his career in the city where it started. Mays did not play long for the Mets, and his acquisition was, as much as anything, a nod to the nostalgia that helped lead to the Mets' creation when the Giants and Dodgers moved west. But the announcement was the clearest possible demonstration that Cohen's mandate in putting the day's events together must have been "Don't &%@#$! this up!" in the clearest possible manner.</p><p>Finally, there was the Old Timers' Game itself, a three-inning affair in which the obvious goal was to have fun, and not to pretend that there was a lot of major-league baseball left in the bodies of the players. (Then again, there were a few exceptions, like Mookie Wilson, also one of my favorite Mets players.) It was even preceded by another dose of Mets nostalgia: a recording of Jane Jarvis, the team's original organist, playing the National Anthem. As much as the fans in the stands (myself included) enjoyed watching the players play, it was so transparently obvious how much they enjoyed being there. So much so, in fact, that, when it time to take the team photo, the players requested that Cohen join them in posing for it.</p><p>Do you think those players would have done that for Fred Wilpon? Do you wonder, as I do, that maybe the reason for the nearly three-decade gap between Mets Old Timers' Days has something to do with the resentment those players had for the nickel-and-dime management that Wilpon gave to the team? Well, you might not have to. Just listen to <a href="https://www.si.com/mlb/mets/news/new-york-ray-knight-blasts-wilpons-at-old-timers-day">Ray Knight</a>.</p><p>Listening. Listening to each other. Learning from each other. That's actually what capitalism should be about. That's absolutely what democracy should be all about. That's one of the most basic lessons that our national pastime can teach us, as well as allowing us all to enjoy a great game. Hopefully, all of us can take in that lesson, and put it into practice.</p><p>Well done, current and former Mets. Well done, Steve Cohen. And a very special final shout-out to Jay Horwitz, the Mets' emeritus public relations person who had a big hand in putting the event together. He is living proof that, whatever the Mets have lacked from time to time in ownership, they have gone a long way in making up for it with what they've had in media relations.</p><p>It was Casey Stengel who said, in 1969 of the World Champion Mets, "Our team has finally caught up with our fans." Perhaps last Saturday is proof that, after six decades, the Mets' ownership has finally caught up with both.</p><p>Okay, it was more than a word or two. But I stand behind every one of them.</p>Stephen Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04248740872885333114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-779623857764606765.post-81058254487968689882022-08-30T11:28:00.000-07:002022-08-30T11:28:26.020-07:00What's Happened In August?<p>Well, if you've been following the news, you know that quite a bit has happened lately. I've written before about how August, the month when the world is on holiday, tends to be <a href="https://therhinoshorn.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-polls-of-august-more-mischief-than.html">a month for mischief</a>, with bad actors working behind the scenes to set up a fall full of political misery. This August, as you already know, has been a bit different, and I plan on discussing that fact as well as other recent events over the next couple of days.</p><p>I have been writing this blog for nearly 14 years and, in doing so, I've tried to keep a fairly consistent schedule when it comes to both frequency and length in posting. My standards in both areas have shifted, in part because I've experimented with different approaches to see what readers respond to the most, and in part because of the demands of other areas of my life. In addition to blogging, as noted on the Twitter account to which TRH connects, I have three occupational lives: as an attorney, an actor, and a historic preservationist. Lately, however, I have begun to add one more occupation that I have wanted to try for a long time, and I am very excited about taking the first steps toward doing so.</p><p>As a preservationist, my focus has primarily been on historic theaters, especially historic Broadway theaters in New York. One of the earliest lessons I learned as I began to pursue this area of preservation came from Brendan Gill, the late Broadway critic for The New Yorker. I wrote him a letter asking for advice about how I could help prevent theaters from being "adaptively reused," which is preservation-speak for taking an old structure and preserving most or sometimes just parts of it while giving it a function for which it was not originally designed. Sometimes, this is inevitable, but not always. Despite competition from a wide variety of other related media, the performing arts have always had a demand for space. And, since that space is often very expensive to construct from scratch, why not take a building that has already been designed for that purpose, and reclaim it for that same purpose? Especially in the age of the green economy, with the greenest buildings being the one that are already built?</p><p>At any rate, in my conversation with Gill, he pointed out to me a simple truth that subsequently--and successfully--guided my efforts to help save Broadway's Biltmore Theater, the home of the original production of "Hair" and now the home of the non-profit Manhattan Theatre Club. In his view, the best way to keep a theater a theater, as opposed to a delicatessen or a disco (two potential fates for the Biltmore at one point) was simply to ensure the existence of a steady supply of productions. Simple in one sense, of course, and not so simple in another. Starting in the 1960s, and continuing well into the 1990s when my preservation efforts started in earnest, Broadway had anything but a steady supply of productions. The physical and social deterioration of Times Square played a role in that, but there were two other forces that played a larger role: the rising costs of productions, both in capital and operating expenses, and the changing cultural tastes of the public, especially the under-30 cohort. Both of these trends led to the growth of non-profit theater, where costs could be institutionalized and more experimental work could be attempted. In fact, in the case of the Biltmore, "Hair" was initially launched off-Broadway by Joseph Papp at the Public Theater. This would become a template for future Broadway shows, as not only off-Broadway in New York but regional and foreign theater companies began to move their productions to New York. The result has been a perpetual booking jam on Broadway since the mid-1990s, interrupted only recently by the pandemic. And part of that has come from several other non-profit off-Broadway companies taking over several Broadway theaters, as MTC has done.</p><p>Forgive the digression. Back to me.</p><p>At the same time that I was getting into theatre preservation, I was also getting back into acting, first in community theater, and later in professional productions. In the course of doing so, I became a reader for the Baltimore Playwrights Festival, which solicits, evaluates, and selectively produces works by professional and amateur authors. A number of the plays I have read over the years, including several that were not selected for production, impressed me greatly, and I began to think about the possibility of being the person that found a way to get these potential shows in front of an audience. Some of that thinking came out of my own experience as an actor: aging has severely limited the range of roles for which I am plausible, and even the unions encourage self-producing as a means of breaking out of the unemployment rut. (There was also a random encounter with a palm reader at a shopping mall one Christmas, but I think I'll save the details of that for any memoirs I might write.)</p><p>The upshot of all this?</p><p>Well, several things. Two of the contacts I made during my save-the-Biltmore days, in addition to their regular work, are aspiring playwrights, and I have begun to work with both of them on what I expect will be co-producing efforts to get their shows up and running somewhere. But I have also taken it upon myself to form a production company, Flipping The Script Productions, that I am dedicating to the production of works by underproduced segments of the populations (e.g., women, LGBQT authors, Blacks, and people of color). I have optioned for production a play that I read though the BPF about which I'm very excited, and have found a director who shares my excitement. We expect to put together a series of readings, perhaps a festival presentation or two, and then, ultimately, a professional production, which hopefully will reach New York at some point.</p><p>What does all this mean for TRH, and its readership?</p><p>Well, frankly, it means change. As you can probably tell, I've always lived a life in which I've enjoyed wearing multiple hats at once. But I have also needed to recognize, from time to time, that in the course of wearing all of those hats, there's an upward limit, at which point one of those hats has to come off. At least permanently, if not temporarily.</p><p>As I have gotten more and more involved in producing, with the expectation that the involvement will continue to grow, I have realized that something has to give in my schedule, or I will have to abandon eating, sleeping, and spending time with my family--in other words, things that I can't and won't sacrifice.</p><p>And I have decided that TRH is the thing that has give. At least, to a degree.</p><p>I might have made this decision in any case. I will be 66 in a matter of a few days. And, while much of politics in this seventh decade of my life has been a cause for distress and even sleeplessness on my part, it has also had a series of inspirational moments. From the first presidential campaign of Barack Obama, to the rise of a new generation of digital and street activism, I feel hopeful, if not 100% optimistic, that the American way of government, and life, will not only survive the current crisis, but thrive even after I am gone, for the benefit of my children, grandchildren, and later generations to come. I am therefore ready to share the proverbial torch, if not completely pass it. As one of the characters in Stephen Sondheim's adaptation of "Merrily We Roll Along," says: "You know what true greatness is? It's knowing when to get <i>off</i>!" I'm not quite at that point. But I can definitely see it, on the horizon.</p><p>I will continue to post here at least once a month, on politics and other issues. But the posts will be fewer and shorter (I'm hoping the latter will, if nothing else, be an improvement). I will be using the time freed up by doing so to work on producing the play I've optioned. In fact, I expect to be setting up a Web site for my production company soon, and have as part of that Web site a blog that will keep people informed about what's going on with it. When that happens, I will be sure to post about it here, and invite all of you to follow this new chapter in my life.</p><p>I thank all of you who read my posts, and welcome any comments at any time in response to what I write, or any comments about subjects you would like to see me cover. That has always, and will always, be the case, so long as I am above ground and typing.</p><p>And now, onward to the events of the day ...</p>Stephen Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04248740872885333114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-779623857764606765.post-74093901260645115492022-07-31T17:28:00.000-07:002022-07-31T17:28:56.401-07:00November 8, And How To Be Ready For It<p>Tomorrow is the first day of August, in a year with midterm elections coming up in the fall, and with the Democrats in control of both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.</p><p>This was also the case in 1994, and 2010. And the midterm results for Democrats were disastrous, as they had to deal in each of those years with the political double whammy of an unpopular President and a shaky economy. Thus, the Republicans are in the position of dreaming about a kind of electoral trifecta, while the Democrats are in the position of hoping that the third time will somehow be the charm.</p><p>I'm intending the analysis in this post to be as cold-blooded as possible, so I'll start with the points in the Republicans' favor. In addition to the weight of history, as I've just described it, there is also the fact that the Republicans control a majority of state legislatures, as they have done now for several election cycles. That means that they also control the process of re-drawing the lines of congressional districts after each decennial federal census. Pre-Trump, they endeavored to use this power with some degree of subtlety, uncertain as to whether going too far with it might turn into electoral dynamite they could not handle. Post-Trump? Well, I endeavor here to be subtle as well as cold-blooded, so I'll just say that post-Trump on this subject is a very different story. I don't think that's up for serious disagreement.</p><p>As a consequence of that fact, it's expected that national support for congressional Democratic candidates in 2022 would have to be, overall, no less than 7% higher on the generic congressional ballot to outweigh the advantages that control of the redistricting process gives to Republicans. As we speak, the relative positions of the two parties on the generic ballot are nowhere even close to a divide like that.</p><p>OK, all of that is pretty depressing. For some of you, perhaps, it's reason enough to throw in the towel rignt now, with only 100 days to November 8. And, obviously, I don't want you to so that. In the entire breadth of American history, with the sole exception of the 2020 election, there has never been an election like this one, where the number-one issue on the ballot is democracy itself. That may very well be true of all American elections for the next few cycles. If we're lucky enough to have them, that is.</p><p>But you know what?</p><p>In spite of the temptation to practice <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/08/opinion/democrats-abortion-midterms.html?referringSource=articleShare">the politics of fear</a>, given the circumstances as I've described them, I'm not a big disciple of that brand of politics.</p><p>You know why?</p><p>Well, for one reason, there are actually a few signs of hope.</p><p>Such as <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/the-politics-of-overturning-roe-are-bad-for-republicans/">the impact of the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision</a>, an impact which we're now seeing playing out all over the county. In fact, that impact may be strong enough that every Democratic candidate for Congress should be making an iron-clad promise to vote to codify the substance of Roe v. Wade, the abortion case that Dobbs reversed. So, at least, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/06/opinion/democrats-midterms-abortion-roe.html?referringSource=articleShare">says this author</a>. I'm inclined to agree.</p><p>In fact, if <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3537642-impact-of-overturning-roe-on-the-midterms-look-at-kavanaughs-impact-on-2018-elections/">one goes back to the 2018 midterms</a>, in which Democrats won a majority in the House of Representatives, one could make a case that the nomination and confirmation process of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, and the then-prospect of losing the abortion protections of Roe, helped to galvanize Democratic voters in House races, while just barely allowing Republicans to hold onto a Senate majority that, prior to Kavanaugh's nomination, looked a bit tenuous. This parallel would seem to reinforce the view that Dobbs may lead to more Democratic votes than would otherwise be cast.</p><p>Indeed, as <a href="https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2022/05/30/republicans-once-again-skating-with-blowing-the-2022-midterms-with-these-new-talks-with-democrats-n2607960">the recent compromise on gun legislation shows</a>, a whole range of wedge issues may not be available for Republicans to use, which is already beginning to open up a schism with the party, on top of the Trump--never-Trump schism that has undermined its credibility and practical ability to serve as a viable alternative in a free society.</p><p>And then, there's the quality, or lack thereof, of <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/7/29/23282657/democrats-midterms-predictions-polls-2022">the candidates running for office</a>. The more Trumpy the candidates nominated by the GQP, the greater the likelihood that swing voters, and even some Republicans, may be repelled by them.</p><p>In fact, I would argue that all of the above has led to <a href="https://twitter.com/SawyerHackett/status/1544712537706532872?s=20&t=0fnmEceNrcPuW27a2N7JFQ">recent changes in the generic ballot</a> that favor Democrats. True, we're not at that 7% mark yet. But there's no reason to think that we can get there. </p><p>All the more so given the prospect now, finally for a reconciliation Democrats-only bill that would be the start of a Green New Deal while providing practical support in containing health care costs. The bill is now being marketed as an inflation-fighting measure. Let's see the GQP fight against that. And them, let's see Democrats talking about it, as well as the other bills the GQP has voted against that would have cut costs for average Americans.</p><p>And, at the same time, talk about the threat to democracy posed by a Republican takeover of even one house of Congress. There's a good slogan for messaging when it comes to the messaging battle that is looking for this fall. You can find it <a href="https://twitter.com/haroldsbro/status/1541142736731918336?s=11">here</a>. Share it as liberally (pun intended) as you possibly can.</p><p>One final thing.</p><p>I said a few paragraphs ago that there's no way we can't make it to victory in November. But there is a way.</p><p>If enough of us give up.</p><p>That can't happen. <i>It must not happen.</i></p><p>I will close by sharing this personal insight.</p><p>I have found, in my own life, that things have broken my way more often than not when I decide that, whether or not things broke my way, I'm going to keep on fighting. None of us always have ideal circumstances. But we always have ourselves. And each other.</p><p>So yes, I'm making <a href="https://steady.substack.com/p/can-the-democrats-win-the-midterms?s=r&utm_medium=email">the pitch to get you to vote, and to encourage as many people you know to do likewise</a>. But here's my ultimate pitch.</p><p>No matter <i>what </i>happens on November 8, <i>don't give up</i>. No matter what happens, we still understand the problems, and we have the best solutions. People need, and deserve those solutions. Not giving up may not guarantee victory this year, but it will guarantee victory in the end.</p><p>I'm in my mid-60s. The horizon line of my life in shrinking. I've lived long enough to see a lot of good things. I want all of you to do exactly the same.</p><p>I hope this helps. I pray even more that it does.</p>Stephen Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04248740872885333114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-779623857764606765.post-60054889384910914812022-07-31T13:21:00.000-07:002022-07-31T13:21:05.800-07:00We've Got To Stop Shooting Ourselves To Death<p>It's hard to talk, or write, about gun violence. It's far harder still to live with it, and live with it is what we've been forced to do for decades. Which makes the need to talk and write about it perpetually urgent.</p><p>But it's exhausting.</p><p>Buffalo, New York.</p><p>Uvalde, Texas.</p><p>The list quite literally goes on, and on, and ON. Even the mainstream media, which has the resources to keep up with it, is hard pressed to do so. No sooner does Jim Acosta on CNN <a href="https://twitter.com/acosta/status/1533520594393829379?s=11">tweet news about eight shootings over a weekend</a> than, twenty-four hours later, he <a href="https://twitter.com/Acosta/status/1533815607929491456">ups the number to ten</a>.</p><p>I don't want to use the sheer number of these systematic slaughters to numb myself, or anyone to the pain, suffering, and unspeakable cruelty that characterizes every one. Because every one is a senseless tragedy. Every one involves the unjustifiable end of lives, many of which had barely begun. Every one is a loss of unmeasurable dimensions to families, congregations, businesses, communities and, ultimately to our nation and culture.</p><p>So I pause here for a moment, to provide <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States">this link</a>. Take a pause here. Click on it. Go through the list. Do so with reverence and respect for all that America has lost. No one of them is more horrible than the other. All of them are horrifying. And, at the same time, all of them need to be remembered not just for the souls we've lost, but as part of the process by which we need to start bringing this carnage to an end.</p><p>That process can be summed up very simply: a national program of gun control.</p><p>Yes, I know. If you're a Republican, or an unaffiliated conservative, or just someone who loves guns more than anything else in the world, and you're reading this, you're already screaming "Second Amendment," either out loud or in your head. I'll get to you folks in a little bit. You're wrong, of course, but I need to take a step-by-step approach in discussing this in order to thwart the irrationality of your position.</p><p>I will, however, start with one, simple proposition. You have no doubt already braced yourself for what I'm going to say by pointing out that many states, specifically ones with the good sense to be run by Democrats, have enacted various laws restricting the ownership and use of guns. And that, despite doing so, many of these states still experience high levels of gun violence.</p><p>But there's a problem with the argument you want to make from these facts. <i>The guns flooding into these states come from your neck of the woods.</i> You can complain all about Chicago, a very blue city in a very blue state, and its gun violence all you want. I'll complain about it too. But I'll also argue for a concerted effort to end <a href="https://wgntv.com/news/wgn-investigates/36k-illegal-guns-taken-off-chicago-streets-in-recent-years-trafficking-remains-a-perplexing-problem/ ">the illegal trafficking of guns across state lines</a>. And, by definition, that concerted effort, whether it involves federal officials, their state counterparts, or both, has to operate--repeat, <i>has to</i>--on a national scale, and perhaps an international one as well. (Remember that whole "war on terror" thing? Well, like it or not, this is <a href="https://www.un.org/counterterrorism/cct/terrorism-arms-crime-nexus">a big part of it</a>.)</p><p>Now you're saying that the level on which gun control is taking place doesn't matter. Gun control doesn't work. The bad guys will always find a way to get guns. The fact that I'm willing here to admit to the existence of interstate gun trafficking simply proves that.</p><p>I've encountered that argument for as long as I've been willing to advocate for gun regulation; in other words, fifty years (yes, I'm that old; in fact, I'm turning 66 on September 1, so make sure you shop early and avoid the last-minute rush). And I've always been alternatively amused and troubled by it. Why? Because no one advocates for the legality of homicide, even though homicides take place in the face of laws that prohibit them. No one advocates for the legality of theft, even though theft is as much an everyday occurrence as birth and death, again in the face of laws that prohibit its occurrence. Good grief, no on advocates for the legality of jaywalking, even though jaywalking is a potentially dangerous activity that nevertheless not only occurs daily, but is in some places a very routine aspect of life. I've lived in New York, so I know the latter fact from first-hand and even participatory experience.</p><p>Why is all of this true? We know that passing and enforcing laws doesn't prevent those laws from being violated. But law reflect not only how we want to organize society, but what type of society we want to be. We want laws that promote safety and stability, while still giving people the freedom to live their lives with confidence and without fear. And laws that regulate the ways in which guns can be distributed and use help to do that. Like it or not, experience has proven that to be true.</p><p>It has proven to be true <a href="https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/12/6/365.">in Australia</a>, a nation that, like ours, developed from a frontier society to a modern nation.</p><p>It has proven to be true <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dunblane-scotland-school-shooting-gun-crackdown-mick-north-america-uvalde_n_62923995e4b0b1d98456954f">in the United Kingdom</a>, a much older tradition, but one whose system of common law has been incorporated into our own legal system, and one with a long tradition of gun ownership and use in a wide range of settings.</p><p>It has proven to be true in <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/canada-gun-control_n_6295921ce4b0415d4d893137">our neighbor to the north, Canada</a>, a nation whose legal system also owes much to the U.K, and one which, like the U.S, and Australia, began life as a frontier society.</p><p>And, on those rare and short-term occasions where it has been tried here, <a href="https://twitter.com/jrpsaki/status/1529502709874888704?s=20&t=A3cKg32wUl25GdSkzuyO1w">it has also proven to be true</a>. Unfortunately, when the political balance of power changed, so did our willingness to regulate guns that have absolutely no purpose except as weapons of war. And those guns are at the heart of our current parade of horrors. So much so, in fact, that there has been <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/the-mehdi-hasan-show/watch/what-happened-to-the-assault-weapons-ban-140922949583?cid=sm_npd_ms_tw_ma">talk of reinstating</a> the assault weapons ban, and a recent effort to pass such a bill <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/3580314-house-passes-bill-to-ban-assault-weapons/">has just succeeded</a> in the House of Representatives. Will it become law? Probably not in this Congress. All the more reason for people to get out and vote in November.</p><p>You want to get in on a dirty little secret? <i>Even the NRA thinks it works! </i>Believe it or not, the NRA began life as an advocacy organization promoting the safe use of firearms, including <a href="https://time.com/4431356/nra-gun-control-history/">regulations to ensure that use</a>. That's reality, folks. Unfortunately, the NRA has over decades devolved into a trade association for gun manufacturers that exists solely to promote the "rights" of these companies to obscenely profit off of the carnage that they help to create. But have no doubt that the NRA still believes in the efficacy of gun bans. After all, they ban the possession of firearms <a href="https://twitter.com/Logically_JC/status/1529462475862822912?s=20&t=A3cKg32wUl25GdSkzuyO1w">at their own events</a>.</p><p>But what about the "good guys with guns" argument? Doesn't that make it OK to have a society that's armed to the teeth, because then there will be so many good guys with guns that we won't have to worry about bad guys with guns.</p><p>Sorry, but it's not as simple as that. For one thing, <i>how do you know who the bad guys are?</i> I think this is one of the fundamental dilemmas of the gun-soaked world in which we now live. It's possible to go anywhere--a shopping mall, a movie theater, a fast-food restaurant, and see somebody armed to the teeth, with no fewer than three holstered pistols and a semiautomatic rifle that they carry as casually as one might carry a purse or a bookbag.</p><p>Help me out here: how am I supposed to know whether this person is a "good guy" or a "bad guy"? All I or anyone else can say for certain is that they're carrying instruments of destruction with all of the nonchalance that one might give to a Happy Meal. None of these people would pass muster in the military or with law enforcement when it comes to their handling of weapons. I have no way of being certain one way or the other and, therefore, from my perspective, my best course of action is using a cell phone to call 911. But that's because I care about preventing another Buffalo, Uvalde, or similar attack more than I care about the rights of someone to parade their gun purchases.</p><p>Which, of course, brings up the question of law enforcement and the military. <i>They're </i>the ultimate good guys with guns, right? You can always call them in and count on them to do the right thing and save the day for all of us, correct?</p><p>Well, from what we know so far, it doesn't look like that's how things unfolded in Uvalde.</p><p>Where the shooter <a href="https://twitter.com/jchaltiwanger/status/1529428800651636736?s=20&t=A3cKg32wUl25GdSkzuyO1w">entered the school despite the fact that the police fired</a> on him.</p><p>Where the police showed a greater willingness to <a href="https://twitter.com/move2strike/status/1529804989954068480?s=20&t=yP1uhuwxPINm5zAo4kT4OQ">protect their own children</a> than to respond to the concerns of nearly parents.</p><p>Indeed, where the police showed a greater willingness to use <a href="https://twitter.com/meganmmenchaca/status/1529891557817589761?s=20&t=yP1uhuwxPINm5zAo4kT4OQ">force against the parents</a> than against the shooter endangering their children.</p><p>And where, as an agency of local government, the police can count on <a href="https://twitter.com/leahmcelrath/status/1529516916221550593?s=20&t=yP1uhuwxPINm5zAo4kT4OQ">the government to cover up</a> all of their, er, "mistakes."</p><p>Especially when there is one political party that calls itself the party of law and order. And that party is willing to engage in the covering up. Does the GQP really believe itself to be the party of law and order? Only for its opponents. They adopted Donald Trump's view that life is a zero-sum game in which law is just part of the game, and anyone who believes otherwise is just a sucker who deserves to be taken advantage of, or worse. This leads to a view of governing best expressed by a Peruvian general: "For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law." Thus, the GQP has morphed from being a political party to a crime syndicate, one that shreds <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/26/opinion/republicans-guns-uvalde.html?referringSource=articleShare">the concept of civil society</a> in favor of an authoritarian chess game between the powerful and the powerless.</p><p>Finally, there's your last line of defense: the Second Amendment. You know, the one that supposedly is more important than all the other amendments to the Constitution (in that case, why isn't it first?). The one that gives all us an unfettered, and otherwise absolute right to "keep and bear arms" in any and all circumstances.</p><p>Except that it doesn't.</p><p>There's that nasty "prefectory language," as the late Justice Antonin Scalia called it, about the "well-regulated militia," and the necessity for having it, being the rationale for the part about keeping and bearing arms. The purpose of the Second Amendment is to allow members of local and state militias ready access to their weapons in the event that government calls them to perform their duty.</p><p>And that's the point about militias that everyone, particularly gun nuts, seems to have forgotten about militias. Militias are not spontaneous assemblages of people with all manner of firearms, ready to enforce their ideas about right and wrong upon an unarmed, unsuspecting populace. Those groups are not militias. Those groups are <i>mobs</i>. And, in fact, at certain times in our history, militias have been called up to put the mobs out of business. I repeat: <i>militias are created, trained, and directed not by random citizens, but under color of law in times of emergent or other circumstances to supplement local law enforcement and otherwise maintain the pre-existing public order.</i></p><p>Don't believe me? You don't have to, and I don't care if you do. We've got a little thing called the text of the Constitution--the thing the Second Amendment is designed to amend--that explains in detail how this whole militia process works. And I'll wager anyone that none of the so-called Second Amendment absolutists have read the provisions to which I'm referring, as described in <a href="https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1544427333502865413?s=20&t=m3kVsoZcndcO3kisySu1ng">this video</a>. None of the groups describing themselves as "militias" fit into this definition. </p><p>Indeed, their existence constitutes one of the very reasons a government militia may need to be called up. The idea that the Framers envisioned the repulsion of national tyranny by random mobs acting outside of the law is ridiculous on its face. It flies in the face on the language within the Constitution itself, which provides not only for the process of amendment but also for the calling of conventions that would have the power to replace the entire document.</p><p>As a society, we are now so awash in guns that they are being used to settle <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/28/us/subway-worker-mayo-dispute-killing/index.html">the most absurdly tiniest of conflicts</a> between people. But the conservative movement in America, and specifically the GQP, has ridden the lies about the Second Amendment to success, in election cycle after election cycle. And it has done so to the point at which gun violence, and mobs calling themselves "militias," are a regular feature of our political life, as well as political life in other countries; there is <a href=" https://www.justsecurity.org/81898/the-gops-militia-problem-proud-boys-oath-keepers-and-lessons-from-abroad/">no more ghastly example of this</a> than the Trump-sponsored assault on our Capitol on January 6 of last year.</p><p>And the most recent spate of shootings illustrate how the GQP has become the party of domestic terrorism. The Buffalo shooter <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/buffalo-shooter-white-supremacist-great-replacement-donald-trump-1353509/">posted an online manifesto</a> in which he spewed white-replacement-theory nonsense that presumably formed the basis for his choice of target: a supermarket in a Black neighborhood. In fact, it turns out that he had given thought to <a href="https://twitter.com/SIfill_/status/1526567568802201602?s=11">opening fire at a local school</a>, but thought that it would be too hard to enter. How has the GQP and its funders responded? Well, for one thing, they've <a href="https://twitter.com/LynzforCongress/status/1531659252472979458?s=20&t=DXZ1au6StkbLITR7toK6ng">posted a list of potential school targets</a> online. And their Senate cohort has vowed to <a href="https://twitter.com/noliewithbtc/status/1528379276957040640?s=11">filibuster a domestic terrorist bill </a>focused on white supremacists.</p><p>It's probably not reasonable to expect any degree of consistency from a political movement that cares <a href="https://twitter.com/irishrygirl/status/1529218017787318273">more about tracking Sudafed</a> use than it does ammunition. But is it reasonable to expect that its members would be willing to shoot their own children to make sure that all of us are armed to the teeth? It may not be reasonable, but, as it turns out, <a href="https://twitter.com/AuthorKimberley/status/1544530426538205186?s=20&t=6cE-waQh9l5qlW279p3fhw">it is much more than possible</a>.</p><p>And the more one examines their behavior, the worse the hypocrisy and cruelty gets. As it turns out, they don't even believe <a href="https://twitter.com/piper4missouri/status/1531707469633835011?s=20&t=DXZ1au6StkbLITR7toK6ng">their own rhetoric about mental health</a> and its role in gun violence. Or even any of their rhetoric about being "pro-life"; rather than do anything meaningful to remember the victims, they <a href="https://twitter.com/TheTNHoller/status/1532075837121384448">throw away the evidence</a> of their fate, preferring instead to focus on arming both <a href="https://twitter.com/erosen1/status/1532150796464402433?s=20&t=p1Gvs3Gr1eQOvoWa1u_flQ">children</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/PBRPLLC/status/1532369236567392257?s=20&t=p1Gvs3Gr1eQOvoWa1u_flQ">teachers</a>. Indeed, far from attempting to reckon with the consequences of their failures on gun policy and their embrace of domestic terrorism, conservatives use the consequences of their rotten ideology to <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2022/05/25/tragedies-like-the-texas-shooting-make-a-somber-case-for-homeschooling/">promote even more of that rottenness</a>.</p><p>And their allies in religion? The ones who are supposed to bless the peacemakers? They're doing exactly the opposite. They're <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/6/9/2103264/--Shoot-them-in-the-back-of-the-head-Evangelical-preachers-ratchet-up-anti-LGBTQ-hate-rhetoric?detail=emaildkre&pm_source=DKRE&pm_medium=email">openly encouraging more violence</a> in the name of G-d.</p><p>Well, I believe in G-d. I believed in G-d when I was a Christian, and I believe in G-d as a Jew. And, literally in G-d's name, it is time for the dishonesty, the hypocrisy, the racism, the violence, and the fraudulent misappropriation of the Second Amendment to STOP.</p><p>And I mean RIGHT NOW.</p><p>So that children can go to school, and come home worrying about nothing more than homework.</p><p>So that all of us can work, shop, play, and enjoy the things the Declaration of Independence said that all of us are endowed with by our Creator: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.</p><p>So that we can return to an honest construction of our most basic law, and craft public policy that balances responsible gun use in civil society with the need to protect everyone from senseless violence.</p><p>So that we can go back to having a government of, by, and for the people, and so that none of us can perish from the Earth until that time that G-d has appointed for each of us.</p><p>As a nation, we were founded on the premise of forming a more perfect union. At this point, I'll settle for a more peaceful one.</p><p>The <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/06/25/1107626030/biden-signs-gun-safety-law">gun bill recently signed into law by President Biden</a> is a good first step. But a small one. Let's hope and pray it's not the last one.</p>Stephen Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04248740872885333114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-779623857764606765.post-81679753932225310582022-06-30T19:35:00.000-07:002022-06-30T19:35:58.942-07:00There Are No Small Parts, Or Actors, In HistoryAs I have gotten older, I've given some thought to my place in the baton race of human progress. That's really what human life is, after all: a baton race. We take the baton from our forbearers, and hand it off to the generation that follows us. All of us are a part of that race, whether we realize it or not. Some of us not only realize it, but seek to have as prominent a place in it as possible. They want to be famous. They want to be appreciated for who they are and what they've done. In some cases, they just have a genuine desire to do good for others, and want to do as much of it as possible. Full disclosure: at different times in my life, I have been each one of these people (sometimes, I have been more than one of them at once).<div><br /></div><div>The truth, however, is that there are not leading roles in the baton race of life, just as there are no leading roles in baton races. All roles are supporting roles. Success literally depends on everyone. There are no leaders. Everyone is a follower. And everyone shares in the success that everyone earns.</div><div><br /></div><div>Which brings me to the case of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Wills_(security_guard)">Frank Wills</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Chances are that his name is not familiar to you, unless your memory reaches back to the summer of 1972, when Richard Nixon's presidential campaign attempted to burglarize the Democratic National Committee headquarters. That botched crime, and Nixon's role in attempting to cover-up the involvement of his campaign, nearly led to Nixon's impeachment and did, in any case, led to his becoming the first President in American history to resign from office.</div><div><br /></div><div>And none of this would have happened without Frank Wills doing his job.</div><div><br /></div><div>Wills was a security guard at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., where the DNC headquarters was located. He was the one who discovered duct tape on one of the doors to prevent it from latching shut, and called the police. Together, they discovered the Nixon burglars in the DNC offices. And the rest, of course, is history.</div><div><br /></div><div>What he did was not dramatic. It did not require any extraordinary talent or training. And, sadly for him, it did not lead to much in the way of rewards from a grateful nation. He did get to portray himself in the film version of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's Watergate book, "All The President's Men," but, beyond that, he had what could be described as a checkered life, dying alone and in poverty.</div><div><br /></div><div>And yet, his simple act, combined with some quick thinking on his part, changed our nation profoundly for the better.</div><div><br /></div><div>One never knows how one might make history. It may be in a dramatic way; it may not. What matters, for the sake of history and for all of our sakes, is staying in the race, and running it well.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, as you celebrate our independence in these profoundly troubled times, keep running the race, in whatever position in that race, life has put you. You never know when you might be the next Frank Wills. None of us do. But we all need someone to take that position in the race.</div><div><br /></div><div>Or, since I'm an actor and a producer, I'll just throw in a variation on a show business cliché: not only are there no small parts, there are no small actors.</div><div><br /></div><div>Run the race. Take your place on the stage. Whatever you do, don't give up.</div>Stephen Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04248740872885333114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-779623857764606765.post-61930216470728312912022-06-30T18:19:00.000-07:002022-06-30T18:19:28.931-07:00What We Can Learn From Immigrants<p>I wrote last month about the Supreme Court's impending decision in the Dobbs case, after a draft of the majority opinion had been leaked to the press. Sadly, and expectedly, that opinion is, as of last Friday, the law of the land, and the inevitable backlash against it has already begun. I expect to have more to say about both in a later post, as well as the mass murder of elementary school students in Uvalde, Texas, and recent developments in the hearings conducted by the January 6th House Select Committee. On a more positive note, the ongoing recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic has (knock on wood, pu pu pu!) reached the point at which my wife and I are able to travel, which has made our summer months busier than they have been in three years. Which is by way of explanation for why this space has not been as filled as it has been in past months, and as I feel it should be in any case. Time to catch up. History has not ended; if anything, it's hit the accelerator pedal.</p><p>But I'm going to start discussing none of these things, as worthy as they are of discussion. Rather, and for reasons that hopefully will become clearer in a few paragraphs, I'm going to discuss a story that hasn't gotten as much media attention as the others, certainly not in relation to what I and many of my wife's colleagues think of as its importance.</p><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/06/28/us/migrants-san-antonio-tractor-killed#:~:text=At%20Least%2042%20People%20Found,his%20deadly%20open%20border%20policies.&text=Chief%20Charles%20Hood%20of%20the,to%20the%20hospital%20would%20survive." target="_blank">This</a>.</p><p>Stories such as this one are a testament, perhaps no longer fully deserved, to the fact that our dysfunctional, disintegrating nation is still treated as a powerful beacon of hope for the world's hopeless. People such as the victims and survivors in this story are routinely dismissed as threats to the American way of life. Stories such as this one, however, expose the reality that these people put themselves in mortal peril to exercise one of the most ancient rights in the history of the world, a right that is the foundational fact of the nation we all take for granted: the right to travel, and in particular, the right to travel in order to find sanctuary from danger. It's worth noting, in light of recent public discussions in a different context about the common law and 19th-century legislatures, that the recognition of this right dates <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_asylum#:~:text=The%20right%20of%20asylum%20(sometimes,which%20in%20medieval%20times%20could">all the way back to the Pharaohs</a>.</p><p>And the need for millions of people all around the planet to exercise that right has perhaps never been greater. Tyranny is rising. The planet itself is on fire. Whole economies are, as a part of that fire, falling to pieces. Diseases are rampant and multiplying, perhaps beyond the ability of medical science to control them. Never, in the entire history of the United States, has the immigration system on which its growth and power depend needed to be as strong and as adaptable as the nation itself has proven itself to be in the past.</p><p>But therein lives the proverbial crux of the problem. We are no longer as strong as we used to be, because we are no longer as adaptable as we once were.</p><p>The history of America has been a history of adaptation. In the process, adaptation would lead to failures, but those in turn would lead to renewed efforts toward success. European settlers adapting European ideas about individual freedom, and later democracy, to the needs and limitations of a frontier society. Making commitments to the peoples they found on their arrival, and then breaking those commitments, leaving to later generations the need to make good on those commitments. Treating later arrivals to these shores not as a window of national opportunity, but as a spigot to be turned on and off as the short-term demands of the economically powerful dictated.</p><p>And yet, as time passed, we continued to adapt, to do what we could to address the problems we helped to create. We are a long way from making up for our failures to Native peoples, but, in our better moments, we recognized the commitments we have made and attempted to honor them. We may not have always been a nation that responded to the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breath free with an open heart and an uplifted torch, but we have reaped economic, cultural, scientific, and even political benefits from those moments when we willingly opened the golden door and added to the size and diversity of the American family.</p><p>Putting it simply, we understood that change was not a threat to stability. We understood that true stability depends on making change an ally in the process of ensuring that stability lasts. Change is a fact of life. Adapting to it is the only way to go on living.</p><p>But today's America is a nation in which only half, perhaps a bit more, are willing to do so. The other half, rather than tacking to the wind, would prefer to spit into it and not worry about getting wet.</p><p>It is composed of people (and their badly misguided followers) who would twist not only the Constitution, but medical science, in order to create a world in which women can be placed under the thumb of men (or another appendage, perhaps), but people cannot be required to abide by common-sense health procedures that equally benefit us all. It is composed of people who would rather regulate a woman's body, but not the guns that can be and are being used to take her life as well as the lives of her children. Perhaps worst of all, although there's room for disagreement about this, it is composed of people who claim the mantle of small-government advocates, yet freely admit to using the power of the State <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/9/30/9423339/kevin-mccarthy-benghazi">solely to persecute their political opponents</a>, while protecting their allies from their obvious and multiple infractions of the law.</p><p>They are brazenly "adapting" the truth to conform to the only reality that matters to them, and that is preserving a world in which while, male, "Christian" property-owners are in charge of everyone else. They are attempting to hijack the meaning of our history to pretend that it only supports the structure of our society as of its beginning. And there are, quite literally, no limits to what they are willing to do in order to make all of this happen.</p><p>Which brings me back to the tragedy of the poor souls in the tractor-trailer seeking a better life in what they hoped would be a welcoming society.</p><p>For the folks in the half of America I've just been describing, those victims are not welcome additions to the strength and vitality of a free society. They are job-grabbers at best and murderers at worst. How does this half of America know this? Well, it doesn't. Not really. Decades of accumulated evidence about the social and economic benefits of immigration simply don't matter. For one-half of a nation of immigrants, the Golden Door of Emma Lazarus is now a barbed-wire barrier.</p><p>And, as it does in so many other areas of public policy, our national political debate mirrors this ugly reality. I'm not sure any incident does a better job of reflecting this reality than <a href="https://twitter.com/GregAbbott_TX/status/1541596214705135617?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1541596214705135617%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2Flive%2F2022%2F06%2F28%2Fus%2Fmigrants-san-antonio-tractor-killed">this</a> ugly post on Twitter from Greg Abbott, whose day job as governor of Texas is a masquerade concealing his full-time identity as a greedy bigot. You may or may not have seen the post; if you haven't, I'll give you a moment her to pause and take in its vile content so you can follow along with me after that.</p><p>I'll leave aside the transparently obvious point: if President Biden or anyone else had created "open borders," the people in the tractor-trailer, and the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2022/05/04/border-patrol-agents-have-missed-thousands-of-immigrant-deaths/?sh=986c3356ea29">literally thousands of other potential migrants</a> who have died attempting to enter the United States without documentation, never got the memo. Neither have <a href="https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1537491937514643457?s=11">the people responsible for border enforcement</a>: the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency (and note that more people are coming from outside the Western Hemisphere). Abbott's post proves a point that sometimes gets lost in the Internet gabfest: it actually is possible to be stupid and corrupt at the same time. Then again, he's a Texas Republican; the point shouldn't even need to be proven.</p><p>Instead, let's consider some aspects of this nation's history that might shed some light on a point that may be less obvious and, in any case, needs to be discussed if we are ever to fully understand the unique debt we owe to those attempting with increasing desperation to come here.</p><p>For starters, since most of the restrictionist crowd in the immigration debate is obsessed with migrants coming from Latin America, let's talk a little bit about the role the U.S. military, at the behest of the U.S. government, on behalf of the U.S. investing class. Our economic interests south of the Rio Grande were not the product of arms-length negotiation between people, and even governments, with equal bargaining power on both sides. What your history textbooks referred to as "gunboat diplomacy" was in fact gunboat capitalism. Our military resources were used and abused not to protect the vital interests of American citizens, but the less-vital need of the investing class to prop up governments that would make it easier to make millions of dollars by exploiting the misery of <i>their </i>citizens, who often had no legal recourse to assert their interests.</p><p>Take a look at the first post <a href="https://www.quora.com/Was-there-a-single-event-in-your-life-that-turned-you-liberal-or-conservative">here</a>, for a description of what I'm talking about. Just to reinforce its point, I'll share here the quote from the post that everyone should read, whether you click on the link or not:</p><blockquote><p>I helped make Mexico, and especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba decent places for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927, I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in 3 city districts. We Marines operated on 3 continents.</p><p>—Major General Smedley D. Butler, US Marines, awarded two Congressional Medals of Honor, the highest medal given by the US government for bravery in combat. In 1938, in bitter reflection on his military career, more than two decades before President’s Eisenhower’s warning against the military-industrial complex, Butler described his military career in War is a Racket.</p></blockquote><p>Welcome to the high human cost of low prices and easy access to consumer goods, folks. I'm going to let you take it from here and do the additional reading that's out there. Maybe, just maybe, you'll come away from it thinking a little bit more about what we might owe the folks in Latin American for the harm we did to their ancestors, to their countries, and to our own reputation for fairness and justice. I think we do. I think that the sanctuary from the governments these people are fleeing, governments that owe not only their position with respect to their people, but their very existence, to American arms on behalf of American dividends.</p><p>And it doesn't stop there by any means.</p><p>Remember what I said a few lines back about the increase in potential migrants from the other side of the globe? To be sure, they're not the ones that immigration restrictionists are obsessed with, at least not routinely. But the increase in numbers is due in no small part to the environmental harm is being done by our appetite for low-cost purchases produced at high cost to the globe, a cost that is <a href="https://www.usglc.org/blog/climate-change-and-the-developing-world-a-disproportionate-impact/">being borne increasingly</a> by poor Third-World counties <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/07/14/climate-change-countries-doing-most-least-to-protect-environment/39534413/">without the resources to fight climate change</a>.</p><p>Even in the case of China, a nation which has the resources to fight climate change on a large scale, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/4351179a">it is not doing so</a>. And from its perspective, which is focused purely on short-term profits, why should it? The U.S. is supposedly the nation doing the most to fight climate change, but it's not doing the one thing it could do to make an enormous difference: <i>stop subsidizing China's destruction of the global environment by allowing Americans to purchase Chinese goods. </i>Most of those purchases are of items that can be made, and used to be made, here in the U.S.</p><p>If we were genuinely concerned about reducing the flow of potential migrants, we could do so simply by promoting economic policies that stopped giving domestic companies to ship jobs overseas to workers who, apart from working in substandard conditions for less-than-living wages, are watching their world literally crumble down around them. We could, to borrow a phrase that has unfairly fallen into disrepute, "build back better" here and abroad. But it's going to take time in any case, even if we elect a government with a majority of politicians willing to make the tough choices that such a path forward would necessarily entail. And there's no prospect of a government like that emerging anytime soon, especially if the pundit class is correct in forecasting a red wave for this fall's midterms.</p><p>Which means that, for at least the short term, we'd better be prepared to accept a lot of climate refugees from all around the world. Desperate people will do anything, will find a way against the greatest odds and the toughest enforcement policies, to find a safe haven. As long as this nation looks like that haven, people are coming here. No wall will stop them.</p><p>One would think that, given the need to address the increasing influx of migrants attempting to escape the consequences of our nation's past sins, our elected representatives would want to do something about it. But, as is the case with other needs we all face, one party is willing to do something about it, even to compromise deeply in order to do so, and one party is not.</p><p>I have mentioned this before, but it's worth mentioning again .</p><p>In 2013, on the heels of Barack Obama's re-election and an expanded Democratic Senate majority, representatives of both parties in the Senate--the so-called "Gang of Eight"--put together a comprehensive overhaul of our immigration laws and enforcement. It required compromises from both sides that each side hated--<i>hated</i>--to make. They made them in good faith, however, because they recognized that a major problem needed to be solved, and they had been sent to Washington by the voters to solve problems like this one. In the end, they came up with a bill that passed the Senate with <i>68 votes</i>, a more-than-two-thirds majority. This was, in other words, the sort of goo-goo bipartisan moments for which most of the Washington media circus lives. Everybody was happy, right?</p><p>No.</p><p>The then-Speaker of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, John Boehner, was having a problem keeping the more rabidly-right-wing members of his caucus happy, and thereby keeping his rather cushy job in Congress. And some of the more rabidly-right-wing members of the aforesaid media circus argued that Congress should wait until after the 2014 midterm elections, which would be likely (and did, in fact) give Republicans complete control of Capitol Hill, thereby increasing the chance that a more conservative-friendly immigration bill could be negotiated.</p><p>Result? Immigration reform died. And, nearly a decade later, there is no hope of reviving it, not in a Congress where Democratic control of each house is by a paper-thin margin, and the prospect (once again) that the upcoming midterm election will lead to a Republican Congress.</p><p>Nothing could better illustrate the cancer that has taken hold of our political life than this. While we have one party that genuinely cares about solving problems. we have another party that is locked into a permanent political campaign, because it doesn't see problems as requiring solutions. They only care about power, and they only care about manipulating problems, and the debates surrounding them, in order to hold onto power and to gain and keep more of it.</p><p>And, from their perspective, the effort has paid off. They now have a Supreme Court that effectively operates as a kind of super-legislature to destroy anything a Democratic President or Congress might accomplish. That, combined with gerrymandering, dark money, <i>and </i>a filibuster rule that appears to be going nowhere, and you have a recipe for permanent minority government.</p><p>And, if you're an immigrant trying to come here for any reason, you are coming to a country that not only doesn't care about your dreams, but also doesn't care about your life. In truth, it doesn't care about any lives. Not immigrants. Not public school students. Not the women whose lives may depend on a therapeutic abortion. Not even, based on a decision today from the aforesaid Supreme Court, the right to clean air and water, something that each one of us needs whether they're in power or not.</p><p>But immigrants are especially vulnerable. They are largely invisible and anonymous to most people. Yet they perform essential services across the entire nation. Like it or not, they perform jobs that American citizens are not willing to perform. There is no huge line forming to the right to work in or on the farms, the hotels, the office buildings, the nursing homes, the hospitals, the public schools in the jobs that immigrants take. Both because of the work environments they are willing to enter, and because they are often undocumented as a consequence of our broken immigration system, they routinely put themselves in physical danger.</p><p>Ask yourself this question: why would anyone do anything like that, <i>unless the alternative was even far worse? </i>For most if not all of these people, it is. And, as noted above, we bear no small amount of responsibility for that fact.</p><p>We're in one hell of a mess. We've got a large number of existential problems, and no clear way forward on how to solve them. But, if there's one thing we can learn about the tragic lives that were lost in their attempt to find the American Dream, it's this.</p><p>If people fleeing disaster still haven't given up on coming here, we shouldn't give up either. On ourselves. Or on them. We owe them a lot. They're willing to give us a lot. They represent the best of this nation's history, and we will need them to be a part of our future. As we try to find light in the present darkness so that we can move forward, we need to bring them into the light, and bring them with us. They have much to teach us.</p><p>Especially when it comes to the need to adapt.</p>Stephen Rourkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04248740872885333114noreply@blogger.com0