After T****, What?

That's the question that haunts me right now.

In the next-fifteen-minutes focus of national politics, the overriding topic of discussion of whether D****** T**** can be removed from office, and how that can be done best.  How far, and for how long, should the impeachment process go?  And if T**** is not impeached, can he be beaten at the polls?  Who can do that?  Who is tough enough?  Or clever enough?  Or both?

And these are the questions that overshadow the process of selecting a candidate to face T**** next November, even though the Democrats vying to do so are simultaneously trying to not only make the case that they can successfully take him on, but that they have the right ideas about what to do once they have replaced him in the White House.  About health care, about paying for college, about fighting global warming, about re-asserting our place in world politics, about almost every issue anyone could name.

But all of that assumes that it's possible for America to go back to life before T****, to a time when, at least once in a long while, it was possible for partisans to look at one another and see fellow patriots, rather than a fifth column that needed to be destroyed.

I'd like to believe that we can.  I'm trying as hard as I can to do it.

But I'm not succeeding, and, frankly, I'm on the brink of giving up.

And I recently discovered that I'm not alone.

Garrett Epps, a law professor at my wife's alma mater, the University of Baltimore, recently had this article published in the Atlantic Monthly.  It raises the question of whether or not the America we've lived in during the past three years is, fundamentally, the America that existed all along:  a nation of pious hypocrites, who wear Sunday manners as the thinnest of social and moral veneers, barely holding back selfish, destructive passions that, at their very centers, are who they really are and what they really want.  It does so through the framework of summarizing Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown," a short story about a young man who is haunted until the end of his life by a vision of the people he knows, even his wife, as being worshippers of Satan, underneath the mask of Puritanical propriety.

Epps goes on from there to list many of the most egregious political sins committed most recently by Republicans on behalf of T****, and finds himself wondering whether we are all like Brown, unable to find a path away from his vision back to a place where he could once again believe in the fundamental goodness of the people he know, even the members of his own family.

I wonder that as well.  I worry that T**** is the snake that has found a way into the Eden of our democracy, and whose presence, even after retribution and punishment, will end up expelling us all from it, by exposing not all of us, but far too many of us, as putting many other things before their identification as Americans, if indeed they still identify with America at all.

That characterization of many of our fellow countrypeople is well illustrated by the examples cited by Epps in his article.  For me, however, it has been reinforced beyond destruction by the conduct of congressional Republicans, and their enablers in the conservative echo chamber, in reacting to the testimony of witnesses during the public, televised hearings of the House Intelligence Committee this past week.  Twelve members of the American foreign service operation--some career public servants, some political appointees put into place by T**** himself--testified in public and provided a clear, credible narrative of T****'s attempt to use military assistance to a foreign ally as leverage to help his own political fortunes in running for re-election.

And then, two amazing things happened.

First, the Republican members on the committee attempted, unsuccessfully, to attack the facts--or, if not attack them, attempt to manipulate to the point at which they could confuse the public about what was actually said by the witnesses.  And the right-wing chattering classes were only to happy to participate, even to pile on, in helping to sow the confusion as widely as possible.  Not one single Republican on the committee--indeed, not one single Republican in Washington--was willing to dissent from, or stand up to in any way, this systematic process of disinformation.

The second amazing thing, however, is far worse.  If recent polling is to believed, the disinformation campaign has largely worked.  Despite the televised testimony, public opinion is largely split on the question of whether or not to go forward with impeachment.

If congressional Democrats do go forward with it, as they now appear poised to be, it is very possible that additional evidence may yet break the balance of public opinion in favor of going forward at least with a trial in the Senate, and perhaps even a two-thirds vote against T**** on at least one article of impeachment--or, at least, a majority of Senate votes that would not remove him from office, but damage his political viability past the point of even Rupert Murdoch's ability to repair it.  If in fact that happens, it may yet be the case that public opinion as expressed at the polls will be enough to end T****'s presidency.

But what if it isn't?

What if, in fact, public opinion swings the other way?

What if a large plurality, even a majority, of Americans decide that this is really nothing more than the political witch-hunt T**** and his followers want them to believe it is?

What if they decide, in consequence, to not only re-elect him, but also give his party large majorities in both houses of Congress, and in statehouses across the country?  And what if, as now seems likely, those political outcomes are facilitated by foreign interests to whom T****, with the aid and connivance of his supporters inside and outside Washington, has effectively sold off the people he is charged with protecting, the Constitution, and the ultimate sacrifices of millions of men and women, in and out of uniform?

What if, in our own way as a people, are we facing Goodman Brown's dilemma?  We will have discovered that the majority of us are not only allied with the rest of us, but is cheerfully willing to sell all of us to the devil--figuratively and literally.

Even worse, as Epps himself points out, we have already discovered that a large percentage of us is willing to do all of these things.  If it is the case that the Democrats prevail on all election levels next fall, how will they be able to govern, when so many of the people they will be charged with governing are in fact committed to doing anything they can to destroy them?  And, unless everyone starts wearing MAGA hats or Resistance buttons to show where they stand, how can we tell who is friend or foe?

And, if the MAGA-hat wearers decide that you are the foe, how far are they willing to go in order to act on that conviction?  The increase in gun violence during the decade that is about to end gives me no reassurance that their are any limits to their actions.

Goodman Brown woke up from his nightmare, only to discover that, for him, it never truly ended.  I fear that, come next November, those of us opposed to T****ism, regarding of political affiliation, and everything that T****ism represents, will share his lifelong horror.

I hope and pray with all of my heart that I am wrong.

Whose Art Is It, Anyway?

American comedian and writer Mel Brooks was once asked what he thought of critics. “They’re very noisy at night,” he replied at once: “You can’t sleep in the country because of them.” When the interviewer tried to explain that he was asking about critics, not crickets, Brooks went on: “Oh, critics! What good are they? They can’t make music with their hind legs.” 

--as quoted by Peter Hay, "The Last Word," which you can find here

I confess to being a huge Mel Brooks fan, partly on a personal level (he loves Broadway, hates Hitler, and had the good taste to be married to Anne Bancroft), and on an artistic level too.  He co-created one of my all-time favorite television series, "Get Smart!" as well as two of my favorite movies, "The Producers" and "The Twelve Chairs."  So, perhaps it's not surprising that I pretty much feel the way he does about critics; he just used a lot more wit that I would have in making the same basic point, especially as it applies to my feelings about film and film criticism.

I've never formed an opinion about a movie based on what critics have said about it.  I won't go so far as to say that critical opinion has absolutely no role in determining whether or not I'll see a movie.  But, over the years, there are any number of critic's darlings that I've avoided for any number of reasons--disliking one or more of the people connected with it, disliking or being disinterested in the subject matter, and other reasons that don't immediately pop into my head, but that I suspect are out there anyway.  On the other side of the equation, there are a few critical bombs out there that I've managed to find at least some redeeming value in--more, perhaps, than the critics did.  It could just be me:  whether it's politics, the arts, or anything else, I don't like having someone tell me what to like and not like.

To my way of thinking, the single worst instance--up until very recently, which I'll get to in a paragraph or two--was the time Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, on one of their various television programs over the years, trashed the movie "Return to Oz," a failed film that attempted to combine elements of two sequel novels by L. Frank Baum to his classic book,  "The Wizard of Oz."  Part of the failure lay in the attempt to combine elements of two different books,which gave the movie the feel of a badly-made turducken.  Part of it (and this was central to the trashing Siskel and Ebert gave it) was the fact that the film was positioned as a sequel not to the original book, but to the classic MGM musical version of that book, some 40 years after the golden age of MGM and its personnel were no longer available.

Siskel and Ebert's criticisms along both of these lines were perfectly justified.  And, had they stopped there, I'd have no quarrel with their evaluation of the film.  But they didn't stop there.  After they completed their review of "Return to Oz," and came back from a commercial break, they devoted an entire segment to an extended lecture (supplemented with film clips) explaining why, in their not-so-humble opinion, no one should be allowed (yes, allowed) to make a film that might, to any degree whatsoever, infringe on their fond memories of a classic film such as the MGM adaptation of "Wizard."  Ever.  Under any circumstances.  In their view, and to borrow a line from another film, "The Ten Commandments":  so let it be written, so let it be done.

Is it really the proper role of critics to make statements like this?

Criticism is a singular profession in that sense.  Part consumer guide, part arbiter of cultural and aesthetic standards, it can be difficult for individuals in it to balance those competing demands and, in the process, make their own contribution to the promotion and development of the arts.  Personally, I lament the Internet-age loss of individuals (like Siskel and Ebert) whose experience, training, and skill enabled them to do it well, in favor of cheaper, younger stringers more interested in writing about their personal experiences than in addressing the concerns of a broader audience.

But I have to say this bluntly, at the risk of putting too fine a point on it in the process:  it should NEVER be the role of anyone--critic, artist, writer, producer, publisher, filmmaker or anyone else--to be able to say that such-and-such a subject or source should never be addressed, in the arts or anywhere else.  It simply isn't right.  Not morally.  Not legally.  And, frankly, not artistically.  No one's smart enough or talented enough to unilaterally decree what should or should not be created.

Which, in a very roundabout way (I have to admit), brings me to the subject of the recent media dust-up over comments made by Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese over their lack of respect for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  If you wish to read something that summarizes the facts behind this dust-up, feel free to click here, read, and then come back (or, at least, I hope you will 😓😓).

Neither Coppola nor Scorsese are attempting to say, at least directly, that superhero films should not be made.  On the other hand, when Scorsese says that they aren't "cinema," and Coppola responds with "I see your 'not cinema,' and raise it to 'despicable,'" it's hard for me not to see this, as I did with the Siskel and Ebert effort at prior restraint against future Oz films, as a form of velvet fascism, a blanket condemnation in advance of the value of all movies made within a given genre, and made by individuals whose contempt for that genre is so transparent it could easily be sponsored by Windex.

Is that in fact their intention?  I tend to want to doubt it, for a number of reasons, not the least of which is my own admiration for the films made by both men.  At the same time, it's worth noting that both men came to their cultural prominence by way of gangster pictures, a genre that suffers from its own creative limitations--every one of them can be boiled down to "crime doesn't pay"--in much the same way that superhero films can be boiled down to the idea that average individuals randomly develop above-average abilities and face challenges as a result.  This is, in fact, a game that can be played with almost any genre.

At the same time, it also doesn't preclude the possibility that films within a given genre can sometimes break the rules of that genre, adding to its potential while at the same time giving us the types of experiences that Coppola and Scorsese insist are the essence of true "cinema."  Actually, I would argue that the MCU films did exactly that, with several of their characters, and most notably Robert Downey, Jr.'s performance as Tony Stark/Iron Man, as his character grows from a state of obnoxious narcissism to complete self-sacrifice.  I could make similar statements about the story arcs of the other characters, or even the extent to which the films overall call into question what it means to be a hero, and what the value of sacrifice can be.  It's all there.  You just have to have patience and an open mind in order to experience it.

And, as a consequence, and as distasteful as ad hominem arguments are to me generally, it's hard not feel that, when Coppola and Scorsese are deriding the MCU films (even though, I should note, they have not seen all of them), they are reflecting their own experiences coming of age in the 1970s as auteurs in a more director-centric film universe.  Admittedly, the MCU Universe is a more producer-centered group of films than the ones created by the easy riders and the raging bulls back then.  But, even the more recent MCU films were made by directors who demanded and got more creative latitude than may have initially the case.  That was certainly true with the last Thor movie, as well as the last two Avenger films.

And yet, I sense that even that might not be what bothers the MCU critics.  I suspect that what troubles them most is what makes people in Hollywood either very happy or very sad in any case:  money.

And, when it comes to the MCU, there is one hell of a lot of it.  As you can see here, the 23 films that make up the MCU cost somewhere in the vicinity of $4.5 billion.  Even nowadays, that's a lot of proverbial lettuce.  But here's even more:  at the box office, worldwide, these films have, grossed more than $22 billion.  And that doesn't even begin to count revenue from cable, Interned and DVD distribution, as well as licensing revenue from toys, games, and other products and services that utilize the MCU intellectual property in some way, shape or form.

The reality is that, as long as superhero movies prove to be capable of producing profit margins like that, they're going to get made.  And, if they are as well-made as the Marvel movies have been to date, people are going to see them.

So, ultimately, I don't know what argument the Coppolas and Scorseses of the film world, and their supporters in the critical establishment, are going to come up with to get film producers and distributors to make more of the kind of movies they want to see.  And that's clearly a shame, because what the MCU is doing is putting into the hands of those producers and distributors enough money to make and distribute dozens, probably hundreds, of those films.

And what makes this especially important is that I know for a fact that there are people who want to make, distribute, and (most critically) see those movies.  I know.  I'm one of them.  I've worked as an actor on a number of feature and episodic projects, including a few that actually managed to achieve some level of distribution.  I would have loved, and so would my colleagues, to have had help from some of that Marvel money.  But I'm speaking not just from the vantage point of a professional.  I'm also speaking as a member of the audience.

To me, as much as art is about anything, it is about the full range of the human experience.  Putting it another way, it is about variety--which is probably why there's a show-biz publication with that word as its name.  It's summed up for me by the late, great Lord Laurence Olivier performing Greek tragedy and Restoration comedy in the same day--in the same show, for that matter.  And if the 1970s still lingers in my mind as a great movie decade, I am sure it is because of the variety of those films.  Sci-fi spectacle in the afternoon, art-house brilliance in the evening.

But not anymore.  Now it's tentpoles, tentpoles, and still more tentpoles.  And, as a consequence, it's more and more soulless multiplexes, and fewer small art-house and other single-screen theaters.  The 1-percenting of our national economic system is mirrored in our culture.  In the 1970s, it was acceptable to simply make profits.  Today, and for several decades before that, nothing less than obscene profits will do.  It is not simply the film industry that Coppola and Scorsese are fighting; it is quite literally the culture of our company and, to some extent, that of the world.

And I'm on their side.  Even though I think their views on Marvel movies are grossly unfair and, fundamentally not even honest, I'm on their side.  But when they decide to pick a fight with the people who attend these movies, including me, they are aiming all of their rhetorical ammunition at the wrong target.  This is ultimately about the larger balance of economic power in this country.  And, when it comes to films, that can only lead to one thing:  tentpoles, tentpoles, and still more tentpoles.

Short of a national election that produces an Elizabeth Warren-Bernie Sanders type of government, one committed over the long term to redressing our current economic balance, what are we who care about a truly diverse culture to do?

Frankly, I don't have any silver-bullet answers.  I don't think anyone does.  But I do have a suggestion.

The late British art historian Lord Kenneth Clark, in his television series "Civilization," once stood in the grandiose Hall of Mirrors in Louis XIV's Versailles Palace and expressed his doubt that rooms as large as that would did not give birth to ideas equally as large.  I've always been fascinated by that observation, and I think it has some application to the dilemma I've been discussing.

As multiplexes and the Internet have come to be the dominant vehicles for film distribution, single-screen theaters, including many renowned art-house theaters, have disappeared by the hundreds, perhaps by the thousands.  Even if Hollywood suddenly woke up one morning and said "Let's take all of those superhero profits and put them into art-house flicks," how would that new-age New Wave reach the public?  Not in multiplexes; their screens and auditoriums are simply too big for presenting these films on the intimate scale that they and the audiences for them deserve.  It could, of course, be done by way of the Internet.  But then, the screens would be disproportionately small compared to the themes and the emotions in the films themselves.  And, instead of true audiences, you have millions of audiences of one, not really thinking, feeling, laughing, crying, or truly talking to one another as part of a shared experience.

The solution, then, is to find ways to get these audiences of one back together in front of a shared, truly movie-sized screen.  And, in the process, save a lot of disappearing historic structures, and perhaps even rebuilding a few (full disclosure, in case you haven't read my previous blog posts:  I am and have been an ardent theater preservationist, and a member of the League of Historic American Theatres (www.lhat.org)).

Is that possible?

Well, here's one hopeful sign that it might.  This has the potential to serve as not only a whole new way of financing and distributing art-house movies, but preserving art-houses themselves.

It might make Coppola and Scorsese happy.

It would certainly make me very happy.

It would probably make a lot of critics very happy.

I'm not sure what it would do for Mel Brooks, but one might hope that it would make him happy.

Hopefully, it would give the best possible answer to the question I posed in the title.

Whose art is it, anyway?

Everyone's.

After all, if even Godzilla can make his way into the Criterion Collection, who is anyone of us to say what art can or cannot be?

Can A Free Press Survive The Internet AND T****?

I've been a newspaper person for as long as I can remember.  When I was very young, Sundays consisted of church, meals, and going through not one, not two, but three newspapers:  the Baltimore Sun, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.  Newspapers did more to educate me about what was going on around me than school ever did, in part because newspapers were far more entertaining than school ever was (apologies to all but a handful of my teachers).  When I was in school, I worked on student newspapers, even having a column in one of them.  When I moved to New York, I purchased all three of the city's daily papers, and sometimes some of its more specialized publications.  I continued to read at least the Times, as well as the Sun, when I moved back to Maryland, and have done so well into the Internet age.

Ah, the Internet.

It's been no friend to newspapers, certainly not as we have traditionally imagined them to be.  In the Net's early days, newspapers published sites on the Web along with their hard-copy editions.  The limits of technology were such that an online presence could peacefully co-exist with a businesses' bricks-and-mortar operation peacefully and profitably.  But, as those limits started disappearing, the convenience of getting everything online for free (except for ads) began to outweigh the value of getting news as a physical product, just as online shopping began to wear out the personal value of going to a store to shop.

Unfortunately, while people were willing to pay for online shopping, they weren't willing to pay for online news quite so much.  They got used to the idea of "free news online," and most attempts to establish paywalls for online access ended in failure.  And so, slowly but surely, newspapers have largely disappeared from the landscape, or were bought by large, physically remote corporations that economize by using syndicated content and freelance writers.  The few career journalists that remain are often reduced to begging in social media for their followers to buy newspapers, reminding me of the dark days of Broadway attendance when marquees frequently advertised a show called "Just for the fun of it … SEE A BROADWAY SHOW!"

Now, as a preservationist, I'm as sympathetic to appeals to tradition as anyone can be.  But, likewise as a preservationist, I also know that saving the past, or the past way of doing things, often requires some degree of adaptation to changing circumstances.  And there are reasons why newspapers, particularly the ones in major cities, might not be well-equipped to be adaptable.

Ever heard of the expression "freedom of the press belongs to the person that owns one"?  Well, it has always been true.  Freedom of the press is the only right guaranteed by the First Amendment that also is, to some degree, a property right.  You can't have a newspaper without the means to print one, as well as to gather and write stories.  In consequence, as the nation grew and its cities along with it, owning and publishing a newspaper became an increasingly expensive proposition.  By the turn of the previous century, if not before, newspapers were for the most part published by large, well-heeled corporations--corporations that tended toward the kind of politics that protects those with money:  conservatism.

And the conservative people who run these corporations don't take kindly to being accused of promoting liberalism.  This, however, has been the bane of American journalism for the past half-century--to be accused of "liberal bias" by political operatives who understand that the only way conservatism can win in the United States is by "working the referees."  In this case, that means accusing all of American journalism of representing a brand of politics that could only be ascribed at best to three sources of journalism:  the Times, the Post, and CBS News.  And, because of the endless repetition of this argument, combined with the fear of being seen as "unfair," the argument eventually achieved its desired effect.  Even the three "liberal" sources of news just mentioned began chasing their tails to achieve the conservative brand of "fairness,"  meaning 100% favorable coverage of conservatives and 100% negative coverage of liberals.  Along came Fox News in the 1990s, and that was the last nail in the coffin of liberal journalism.

Speaking of 100%, I am 100% convinced that, more than any other single factor, this neutering of the press in the performance of what should always be its real job:  telling the truth, and letting the public weigh the question of "fairness" for itself, rather than having it resolved exclusively by conservatives has led American politics in a straight line of corruption, from bad to worse to totally off the scales, from Reagan to the Bush family to T****.  Faced with 40 years of corrupt behavior by Trump, where the due diligence practically does itself, and endlessly exaggerating the seriousness of Hillary Clinton's use as Secretary of State of a private server for her e-mail, what does the press do?  Focus on the e-mail!  Which has just been established by T****'s own State Department to have been a non-story in the first place.

Nearly three years of unrelenting corruption by T**** and company, the American press has, to some degree, shaken off the fear of being tagged as "biased" by self-interested wingers who don't care in the first instance about the proper role of the press in a free society.  But that hasn't done enough to reverse the downward trend in hard-copy circulation.  And online advertising, while it provides a revenue stream, doesn't provide enough of one to sustain what I believe would do the most to promote journalism, offline or on:  a return to publishing the unvarnished truth about events in the world and at home, without fear or favor.

So, whither a free press?

Perhaps the answer can be found here, in the trend of college newspapers to pick up the slack of local coverage when the general-circulation newspapers in their towns fold.  Maybe this could be the start of a new, non-profit business model for newspapers, one that would allow them to be supported by donations (with transparency about the identities of donors).  Perhaps that would enable newspapers to not merely survive, but to flourish and to, above all, be completely free to publish not what some of us think we should know, but what all of us need to know.

Just Where Do The Homeless Come From?

By now, you've probably read a lot about the homeless crisis in California.  Calling it a crisis, in fact, may be putting it mildly.  As of 2018, California had four times as many homeless people as Florida, which had the second-largest homeless population of all the states.  You can look here to see the exact numbers, as well as to get a sense of where your state ranks relative to others with respect to its homeless population.

With a budget surplus of well into eight figures, to say nothing of a broad range of charities and foundations, California's state government would not seem to lack the financial resources to address the problem of homelessness.  From a public policy standpoint, the biggest culprit in all of this goes all the way back to the 1970s and the decision made then to de-institutionalize the mentally ill, on the theory that they could be more effectively treated on an outpatient basis.  In retrospect, the patently obvious failure of this theory seems to have been a precursor of our current, broader health care crisis, brought about in part by the for-profit age of super-pharmaceuticals that work miracles but cost the patients a small fortune to use.  Man (including all genders here) does not live by drugs alone--or profits alone, for that matter--when it comes to health care needs, regardless of the nature of those needs.

Reversing this trend would seem to be one obvious solution, along with public policies that addressed the need for a higher minimum wage and more affordable housing.  But it's that latter point that seems to be the real sticking point in addressing the homeless crisis.

Commentators on the right often blame California's problem with homelessness on allegedly excessive land use regulations for the purpose of preservation, whether of eco-systems or historic properties.  This line of commentary, even putting aside its inherently self-serving nature, runs into two problems.  The first is the afore-mentioned surplus, something that would not exist if all of those pesky regulations were as crippling as conservatives keep forcing themselves (and the rest of us) to believe.  The second is the fact that California, to put it mildly, is a very big state.  Finding room for all of the homeless in it, as large as the number of homeless is, should be relatively easy.

The core of California's problem, apart from its mental-health dimension, is the fact that the vast majority of its homeless population is concentrated in its largest and fourth-largest cities, Los Angeles and San Francisco.  That makes it not merely highly visible; it also has reached the point at which it has come close to shutting down otherwise functional neighborhoods.  And, because both cities are filled with thriving neighborhoods, relocating the homeless within city limits runs up against the NIMBY problem in a hurry.

And here is where we come to the heart of the problem:  California, due to its success under Democratic government, has become the most popular place in the nation to live.  Correspondingly, the value of property is sky-high, and those who own it have an incentive to sell it to people who then want to develop it in ways that will make even more money.  That means luxury developments, not middle- and lower-middle-class ones.  And fewer places in which to live and work for the majority of people who have come from other states to try cashing in on California's success.

Then again, are California's homeless simply a cohort of people who took Horace Greeley's famous advice about going west and struck out?  In part, perhaps.  Is it a case of people finding work that simply doesn't pay enough to afford housing in a superheated real estate market?  Again, in part, perhaps.  State and local governments have recently made increases in the minimum wage; in time, those could have an impact on the homeless numbers.

Then again, are most of these people here voluntarily?  Or is this the consequence of red states deciding that the only spending their failed policies permit when it comes to the homeless is a one-way ticket out of town for each of them?  Take a look.

I'm going to raise one more possibility.  One that has a personal dimension.

As I've said previously on more than one occasion, I am a former evangelical Christian who is now a converted Jew  During the peak of my born-again fervor, I went through a period during which I"bought into" (pun intended) the prosperity-gospel nonsense that many evangelical leaders (I hesitate to call some of them preachers) promote that the more faithfully one tithes, the more G-d rewards the the tither.  Like many before me, and many more since, I learned the hard way that this is simply not the case.  Indeed, if one reads the New Testament very carefully, one will discover that the so-called "prosperity gospel" is not even part of the Gospels.  It is a line of "theology," however, that is very effective in lining the pockets of the false prophets with real profits provided by the spiritually bereft and easily gullible.

How many members of the homeless population in this country, including the ones in California, are among the bereft and gullible?  How many of those people were systemically robbed of their hard-earned money to support the criminally rich lifestyles of the pious and hypocritical?  Especially by this miserable excuse for a man, who shouldn't be allowed on television anywhere, anytime (and don't you love the fact that Wikipedia describes him as a felon before it mentions his checkered career as a televangelist)?  I swear, if we took all of these people, turned them upside down, and shook them until all of their money fell on the ground, we'd have more than enough money to pay for the homeless.  That is, the people that Jesus told people again and again they should care about the most.

I don't have an answer to that question.  But I do know that, whether due to fake political policies or fake faith, there are too many people in this country who suffer unjustly.  I hope and pray that we can do something to end this state of affairs.  And, due to its successes in other areas, I feel confident that California will be able to lead the way.

A Follow-Up RE: The Republican Party Is No Longer A Party

This morning, I was thinking about two things regarding yesterday's post.

First, I meant to (and forgot to) say something about the fact that the GOP Animal House stunt took place on a day when Pelosi was in Baltimore, at the funeral of her brother, Thomas D'Alesandro III, a former Mayor of the city.  It was also the day before the body of Elijah Cummings was to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda.  Cummings was, among many other things, the late chair of the House Oversight Committee, which happens to be one of the committees taking part in the impeachment investigation.

There's no need for me here to recite the life history and accomplishments of Cummings.  They have been more than adequately chronicled elsewhere, as they should be, and we should all mourn his passing and look to him as a role model for our own conduct going forward.  Indeed, coming at a time when his leadership skills and moral authority were perhaps more sorely needed than they ever were before, one is forced to wonder what G-d, fate, kismet, or whatever prime mover you believe has in mind for the Republic at this point.  Personally, I'm inclined to think that G-d loved Cummings so much that he took him ahead of the Biblical allotment of threescore and ten, and is now demanding that the rest of us step up to fill the void he leaves for all of us.

In any case, the fact that the Gaetz Gang would pull their "prank" at a time like this only underscores the inherently cowardly nature of their actions.  That's something to keep in mind as well, especially if events in the near future are going to follow a similar pattern, as I expect they will.  What's left of the Republican Party is little more than a rump gang of bullies--and bullies are cowards at heart.

I don't think that the Speaker wanted to address the attack of the Gaetz Gang on federal statutory law, congressional oversight, and due process in general during a 48-hour period during which she was observing a personal and civic day of mourning, especially for two men to whom she was close.  I respect her for that.

But, come tomorrow, if she does not recommend formal charges against the gang's members, including the confiscation of their cell phones to determine whether they have been compromised by their actions, I will be worse than deeply disappointed.  However much one prizes civility in government, one must always remember that civility is a two-way street.  All the more so when one is the person in charge of maintaining that civility.  There is, in the last analysis, such a thing as going too far.  And that's exactly what the Gaetz Gang did.

Second, there's the alleged pretext for the Animal House action:  the alleged violation of House rules regarding the investigations.

The investigations are being conducted under rules adopted by the House when the Gaetz Gang and its party were in control.  Had Pelosi and the Democrats attempted to change them, the GOP would have found a way to have a juvenile snit over that.  Rather than giving them a chance to do so, they went forward with the status quo, which ought to be credited to them as a form of "bipartisanship."

And, once more time:  under those rules, Republican members, including members of the Gaetz Gang, have been present and able to participate in the investigations all along.

Enough said.  For now.

The Republican Party Is No Longer A Party

"See you in October."  Those were my last words last month.  And here we are.

My sports-style sign-off was based on the fact that, not long before my last post, Nancy Pelosi finally announced that the House of Representatives was going to begin a formal impeachment process against T****.  Since then, quite a bit has happened to fuel the media and political frenzy surrounding the process, much of it related to the now-infamous Ukrainian quid pro quo and the evidence that establishes its existence beyond any doubt, reasonable or otherwise.  On top of that, and worse in so many ways, there was the systematic  slaughter of our erstwhile but highly effective allies, the Syrian Kurds, green-lighted by the Criminal-in-Chief himself.

Like much of what has happened in this country over the past almost-three years, I find myself thinking that these events, like so many similar ones before them are shocking/not shocking.  That is, they would be shocking coming from any of the other 43 individuals to have held the office.  But not from this one.

The only given with T**** is that he has absolutely no ability to separate any aspect of his life--his family, his businesses, and now the country he's supposed to lead--from his individual interests.  He thinks that being responsive to the needs of others is for wussies, even though the Constitution and history ought to bind him to doing exactly that.  Whatever can be said about his mistreatment of the Ukrainians and the Kurds, there is only one clear winner as a consequence of it--and it's not the United States.

It's Russia.  And Vladimir Putin.  Putin's Nos. 1 and 2 foreign policy objectives, as part of his overall plan to restore Soviet-level hegemony, are to push westward against NATO and southward against American interests in the Middle East (i.e., Israel and oil).  And T**** has spent the whole of his presidential term serving both interests, culminating in the revelations (in the case of Ukraine) and the events (in the case of the Kurds) of the past several weeks.

All of this has made the impeachment work of Pelosi's House committees much harder in one sense.  There's now more to investigate, which may delay the completion of their work well past the original informal Thanksgiving deadline.  At the same time, it may make it easier.  In fact, I have believed for some time (and continue to do so) that all of the T**** shenanigans boil down to one basic and highly criminal issue:  rather than viewing his office as a public trust, one that requires some level of personal sacrifice for the good of the nation as a whole, he simply sees it as just another property among many property that he "owns," something to be used and abused for personal gain.  

This, of course, is why he can't show his tax returns; those returns almost certainly would provide a road map of how this process has worked for him in business, and how it continues to work for him as President.  In particular, it would show how far he has been willing to go in the selling of his public office:  to the point at which he has been actively working as an agent for a foreign power against the interests of the country whose fate has been placed in his hands by a theoretically democratic election.  And now, based on recent events, we may not even need to show what the returns would show:  that T**** is guilty of bribery and treason, to say nothing of other high crimes and misdemeanors.

The real problem, however, is that this is no longer just about T****.  If it were, I would treat his eventual removal from office as a foregone conclusion.  But I can't do that.

T**** didn't come to us out of nowhere.  His presidency is the culmination of fifty years of systematic betrayal by his party of both the Constitution and the values it embodies.  Richard Nixon, and his intervention in the Vietnamese peace talks as well as Watergate.  Ronald Reagan, and his betrayal of the Iranian hostage negotiations as well as the Iran-Contra scandal.  George W. Bush, and his "election" to the White House as well as--well, do I really need to say more than WMD in Iraq?

And now, the congressional Republicans who wanted to impeach Bill Clinton over the constitutional equivalent of double-parking his car now desperately want you, me, and everyone else to pretend that T****'s entire term in office is as pure as the driven snow.  And they're so sure of this themselves that no level of bullying is too much in making the non-existent point.

Not even this.

What's instructive about this episode, I think, is twofold.  First, as the article recounts in some detail, the behavior of House Republicans is far from an aberration; it's part of a part of systematic abuse of the political process, and the deceit that goes hand-in-hand with it, that party members have been honing at the state level for some time.  In other words, this can't be considered "rouge" behavior.  The people engaged in this egregious behavior aren't outliers.  They are the mean, medium, and mode of the modern Republican Party.

Second, it should be noted that the House Republicans who "crashed" this committee hearing--and keep in mind, some of the "crashers" were committee members who had the right to be in the room without resorting to fraternity-level (or worse) behavior--brought their cell phones into a setting where full security procedures are meant to be followed, including the securing of all electronic devices in snoop-proof lockers.  These clowns, however, were having none of that.  In fact, they were using their phones to record what were supposed to be closed proceedings, exposing the proceedings and their phones and the contents thereof to foreign monitoring.

From this latter point, you can only conclude that the Gang of Gaetz--a House member who has his own checkered career with the law--is either stupid or corrupt, although the possibility of both can't be completely discounted.  But, when you compare this incident and the potential consequences of it to the past half-century of corruption of the part of the Not-So-Grand Old Party, it doesn't seem like an isolated case.

So one is left to conclude, based on all of the evidence, that the Republican Party, the party of Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Eisenhower, is no longer a political party.  It is more properly viewed as a criminal enterprise.  Perhaps, far worse, it is little more than an agent for one or more hostile foreign interests, led by a real-life Manchurian Candidate.

If this is true--and I for one see no other conclusion that one can fairly draw from the available facts--the party and its members must be opposed by every lawful tool available to the rest of us.  And, by "us," I'm including registered Republicans whose own beliefs and interests have been betrayed by the actions and inactions of their party.

In any case, the elephant's share of the party must be stopped.  In the courts.  And at the ballot box.

And beyond that?

Well, if they won't rule it out, perhaps the rest of us shouldn't.

Three Small Reasons To Smile--AND One Big One

It's an understatement to say that we live in troubled times--a pretty spectacular understatement, as a matter of fact.  But that's all the more reason to look for good news wherever you can find it.  Here are three recent examples.  Actually, it's going to be four--there was one late-breaking development about which we'll all happily know more by the time you read this post.  I'll still save that one anyway, because the magnitude of it outweighs all of the others put together, along with many more added.

First, a little bit of news about "1984."  No, not the year, the book.  It's notoriously famous for its utterly bleak ending, possibly the bleakest in all of English-written literature.  Its last sentence are four words, which I won't repeat here so as not to create a spoiler for all of you who have not yet read it.  And, if by chance you've failed to do so, read it, not in spite of the bleak ending but because of it.  George Orwell's novel of a totalitarian state dedicated solely to preserving its own power into eternity is what all who have written about it have said it is--a cautionary tale about the dangers of such states and the perversion of language in the service of their perpetuation.

And yet, language, which in one sense is the major subject of the book, is also referenced therein as a source of hope, in a time beyond the bleak ending.  I'm referring to the book's Appendix on the principles of Newspeak.

I had read the novel several times, including the Appendix, and cannot believe that I did not pick up on something that, in hindsight, seems blindingly obvious.  Blindingly obvious, that is, after reading articles like this one.

It had never occurred to me that, tucked carefully into what seems like something less of interest to the average reader, and more like something aimed at scholars, that Orwell was sending, even as he was dying, a message of hope to a world he saw as falling apart around him.  Language, in "1984" is the vehicle by which Big Brother and the Party maintain control over Oceania.  But language is also, ultimately, the vehicle by which that control is one day subverted.

This ought not to be interpreted as a "happy ending" to the novel.  Orwell's oppressively bleak view of what might happen to us, if we let it, should always shape our thinking about politics, and life in general for that matter.  If anything, it should be even more reason to fight as hard as possible against the possibility of a totalitarian state, one whose destruction of humanity is as senseless as it is ultimately futile.

And, speaking about the fight against totalitarianism, there's reason to think that we haven't forgotten how to do it.  Not even in ruby red Kentucky.  Take a look.

It's worth remembering in connection with this news that Reagan's first major move was breaking PATCO, the union representing air traffic controllers who had gone on strike.  That move was not about air traffic control, or the safety that the controllers' work provides to million of Americans every day.  It was about creating a template that could be used against any union, against all unions, to blame them for double-digit inflation and interest rates, and to make voters, including many union members, believe that corporations would be their very best friends, as soon as all of that nasty union stuff went away.

And, sadly, people bought it, which is why inflation-adjusted wages have steadily declined over the past four decades.  Thanks, in a signal of the massive level of irony to come under right-wing domination of American politics, to the first President who was also a president of a major union, the Screen Actors' Guild (full disclosure:  I am a member of SAG-AFTRA, its successor).

Even worse, during this same time period, many states enacted so-called "right-to-work" laws, which are in fact right-to-work-for-LESS laws.  By forbidding the collection of union dues from non-union workers in unionized workplaces, these laws dilute the power of unions to act politically outside of the workplace, i.e., to work on behalf of legislation that would promote the interests of employees generally.  These laws, permitted by the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, were intended to prevent labor from doing what capital has been doing for centuries--organizing and fighting for its interests.  And this intention has been so fully realized that, thanks to a conservative Supreme Court, corporations are now treated as people--which is much more than can be said for American workers.

If a lesson like that can be learned in Mitch McCONnell's home state, and put to ingenious effect as is the case here, there may finally be hope for those workers.

Changing the subject for a moment, to one that's near and dear to my heart--historic preservation--here is a tale of two New York movie theaters, one that is being renovated and will eventually be re-opened, while the other is being closed forever and is more likely than not to be replaced, given its location, by high-end retail.

The common thread in both stories is that single-screen theaters, after years of onslaughts by television, cable, video recorders/players, and, finally, the Internet, have finally bitten the dust.  This is a sad occasion for folks like me who enjoy movies as both a spectacle and a social experience, and the fact that multiplexes now serve as replacements for many of these lost palaces is thin gruel indeed.  Multiplexes, for the most part, look a lot like each other, a common failing in much of urban/suburban architecture.

In contrast, even a small theater like the Paris had in own quirky personality, in part because of its status in New York as the city's premiere art-film house.  Now, it has the distinction of being the last single-screen movie theater in the city to close.  My father and I went there on the day I moved up there for a civil-service job, and saw "Get Out Your Hankerchiefs."  We were not impressed by the movie, but liked the theater very much.  It's a shame that someone can't find a way to preserve it as an event space, like the former Ziegfeld Theater, perhaps even as one with a film focus.

On the other hand, it's great to see the Sanders/Pavilion Theater in Park Slope, Brooklyn, to something that will at least suggest its former glory, even though it will essentially be a multiplex.  The company behind the theater's new lease (pun intended) on life has committed to restoring the few original decorative elements of the building, which is great news.  There are many more buildings like this one, in New York and around the country.  Preserving them and bringing them back to life has been shown, again and again, to be the key to reviving communities all across the country.  I encourage you to take a look at www.lhat.org to learn more about this.

So, there you have it.  Three small reasons to smile in the midst of the darkness.

And one BIG reason to think that the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel is not an oncoming train.

Right here.

Finally.

See you in October.

Is Socialism The Future Of America?

We are now thirty years beyond the collapse of governments in Russia and eastern Europe that were, allegedly, based on communism, a philosophy advanced by Karl Marx in the nineteenth century in which the "means of production" were owned by the workers, and not an exclusively investor class.  That collapse was touted by global media, especially global business media, and the politicians it supports, as settling once and for all the question of which economic system--capitalism or socialism--was history's "winner."  Every major government in the developed world, including the United States, committed itself to expanding the power of market economies throughout the world.  And expand they did--beyond the boundaries of anyone's expectations.

History, however, is never a march in one direction.  It may be useful to think of it as a kind of spiral, one that moves upwards as we learn more about mastering both ourselves and the world around us, but one that touches many basic points over and over again as the spiral goes around and around.  In the current circle, our experience has taken us a long way past the capitalist point on its circumference and back to a word that had been effectively declared a dead letter in 1989:

Socialism.

Socialism has been so often used in our politics as a kind of swear word without meaning or context (except, more often than not, that you should hate people who believe in it, whether in fact they do or not).  So it's useful to take a few moments to discuss what socialism is and isn't.

It's been said jokingly that capitalism is a theory of production without a theory of distribution, and socialism is exactly the opposite--a theory of distribution without a theory of production.  While there's some truth to the joke, it lies more on the capitalism side.  For capitalism truly is a theory of production without a theory of distribution.  At its most extreme, in the late nineteenth century and today, its proponents place their emphasis on the need for all property, or the maximum possible amount, to be owned by private actors and not governments or agencies thereof.  They have absolutely nothing to say about the distribution of products and services.  They simply assume that, so long as private owners are allowed to maximize the profitability, the distribution problem will take care of itself.

But what that latter point means in practice is that distribution "takes care of itself" in the form of excess, excess that has the effect of squandering human potential in both directions.  At one end, many people aren't able to acquire enough resources to live minimally decent lives, regardless of how long or how hard they work.  At the other end, a handful of individuals are able to acquire a share of those resources well beyond what they could rationally use in a dozen lifetimes--and often end up putting those resources into efforts to leverage their existing power to even greater levels.  Sadly, this country currently has a "President" who is the embodiment of this type of individual, as are many of his supporters and many members of his Administration.

Socialism, in contrast to what you may have heard or read elsewhere, is far less interested in the issue of ownership than capitalism is.  The truth is that socialism comes in many different forms of ownership--the key linking these forms, however, is the concept of collective benefits, rather than individual ones.  A privately-owner cooperative, for example, is a form of socialist enterprise, one in which the economic benefits are not inextricably linked to investors, but are shared by the workers.  More common, of course, are democratic socialist economies that use taxation and regulation to ensure the existence of a social safety net guaranteeing that the minimum needs of everyone are met.  But, unlike Marx's concept of socialism, these societies don't ban private ownership of businesses; in fact, many of them are the homes of some of the world's most profitable companies.

On the other hand, in the economies of the former Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact governments, China and Vietnam, governments made attempts to virtually eliminate private ownership of businesses, attempting to put Marx's idea into practice by acting as a "trustee" of the people that owned the means of production to ensure maximum fairness in the distribution of goods and services.  All of these societies did so, however, without any form of meaningful democratic input that would serve as a check on the self-serving impulses of the governments--and, as a consequence, much of the output of these economies was squandered in fruitless military adventurism, not unlike our own experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

Ironically, in the end, China was forced to salvage its economy by embracing many practices of market economies, while still doing so under the name of "Communism."  As a consequence, China has the worst of both worlds:  a country controlled by a class of plutocrats pretending to be avatars of the masses, who have no way of influencing the political or economic direction of the country

What can be learned from all of this, and what I've believed for decades, long before the end of the Cold War, is that both extremes are the enemies of a vibrant economy and a world in which the will of the people is a reality.  In both cases, corrupt ruling classes answerable only to themselves sabotage the distribution of goods and services so as to prevent them from reaching the maximum possible number of people.  However, in the case of democratic socialist countries, where ownership of private property is not restricted by state ownership or political freedom by oligarchical investors, people enjoy the ability to freely participate in all aspects of society and receive a share of its total outcome that ensures the means to participate as well.

In other words, there is no one-size-fits-all answer to the question of how to organize capital or labor in a nation, so long as the extremes ends of the organizational spectrum are avoided.  Some societies will lean a little bit more toward private economic ownership, and some will lean a little more in the other direction.  Neither is right, and neither is wrong, so long as society is stable and individuals can maintain there own autonomy with it.

What is important to keep in mind, ultimately, is that private ownership of property can never be absolute in any society, if that society is to function at all.  Government needs the ability to contract for services and purchase property if it is to have any chance of performing the functions that everyone agrees it should perform:  providing a criminal justice system, including police, and a national defense. 

And then there's the dirty little secret about property itself:  without the existence of government, property rights would not exist at all.  In a state of nature, which seems to be what most libertarians are aiming for, there would be no true property, for there would be no government to create rights to ownership that could subsequently be enforced.  And, if government is to exist at all, then property rights must give way to that existence, to the maximum extent necessary to maintain it.  Think that this is some bizarre, Marxist concept?  Nope.  Benjamin Franklin, no stranger to property interests, said it himself.  Don't believe me?  Read all about it here, in an article that effectively argues for a balance of interests when it comes to property ownership.

As a society now in the grip of a shrinking number of plutocrats, it's high time we had a robust but thoughtful discussion amongst ourselves about the future of our economy, and focus on the question of whether "socialism" is truly a dirty word, especially in light of the fact that we already have a good deal more "socialism" than we commonly acknowledge---or, perhaps, care to admit.  We are, indeed, an affluent society, to borrow from Galbraith, but that affluence is concentrated in such a way that America may not be the land of the free very much longer.

Our politics, for far too long, has been about labels and personalities, which is hardly the state of affairs the Framers hoped for.  We need, in particular, to get past the idea of socialism as a label for some unmentionable evil.  The truth is that some greater measure of socialism than what we already have may be the only way toward, to twist a phrase, making America America again.

9/11, And What We've Forgotten

Another September has arrived, and, with it, more commemorations of the anniversary of the event that has done more than anything else to define the politics and culture of our current century.  A human tragedy of epic proportions.  A shock to our sense of security.  And a new understanding of the extent to which our planet has shrunken in a globalized, digitalized economy, and of how connected events in the farthest corners of the world are to each one of us.

I remember thinking to myself, and saying to others, as they and I were attempting to pick through the fog of our emotions to sort out the path forward for us all, that you don't measure recovery from a disaster such as this one in days, weeks, and months, no matter how much all of us wanted to somehow feel better than we did.  You measure it in years, and even decades.

Well, we have certainly had years, and almost decades.  Two years from now will be the 20th anniversary of the hijacking of four airplanes and their transformation into human missiles against New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and yet another target that was never reached because of the courage of the passengers on the fourth plane, as well as the cellphones that gave them the information they needed to act on their courage, and say goodbye to those who meant most to them.

Where are we today?

Are we safer, stronger, freer, and more compassionate than we were on the day before September 11, 2001?

I wish I could say we were.  But I can't.

Because I have seen this nation descend from that day into a cesspool of profiteering and paranoia that threatens the survival of our democracy and our civilization more than any terrorist ever could.

We have seen the need to arm ourselves against new threats turn into an unending stream of public money for a war in Afghanistan that seems without end or achievable goal, a war against Iraq that was based on lies and gave birth to ISIS, and a potential war with Iran that seems perpetually ready to start at any minute.

We have seen a newfound respect for the role that government plays in our everyday lives, as a direct result of the sacrifices made by first responders and their families, disintegrate into the same endless battles about the size of the government that we need.  Even though the answer to that question is obvious:  In a democracy, the size that the people decide it should have, for the purposes they choose to pursue.  People.  Not money.  And yet, with each passing day, we continue to confuse the two more and more.

Perhaps worst of all, we have allowed the religion and ethnicity of the hijackers to reinforce--and perhaps, to some extent, revive--the bigotry towards people of color and religions other than Christianity that existed long before Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal.  (Even that limitation to "men," and the omission of a clause denouncing slavery, is a testament to that existence.)  We have, in fact, carried that bigotry to the point that we are presently caging children, and allowing them to die, for the sake of a security that does not need to be obtained by those means, which should never be tried in the first place.

And the fear that allows a sizable minority of Americans to make war on anyone who doesn't look, sound, or act like "them" is also allowing moneyed interests--here and elsewhere--to distract us from taking care of each other, and to take from us the means by which to build a better society, and line their already overstuffed pockets with it.

How did we get here?

As Democratic Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg pointed out, by forgetting how we felt on September 12, 2001.  When we felt we were willing to work together at any cause to protect each other, and to rebuild a better America from the ruins of the attacks.  When we looked at each other and saw allied Americans, not partisan enemies.  When, for a moment, we understood the fact that, in a democracy, the only opponent who could defeat us was ourselves.

And then, slowly but surely, we set out on the path to defeat.  By outsourcing our willingness to sacrifice to an all-volunteer army.  By believing in an long-discredited theory about self-paying tax cuts.  By failing to understand that we are not fighting a race, or a religion, but an ideology that can only be undermined from within, not by fighting on the front lines, but through covert operations that get inside the other sides' operations and planning, and take it apart far more effectively that a clip of bullets ever could.

I'll be blunt.  All of this is due in part to a lack of political leadership at all levels of this country, and there is blame on both sides for that lack of leadership.  But, far more importantly, it's due to us.

To all of us.

For failing to go beyond jingoistic, once-a-year graphics on social media to stay engaged in what is obviously a complex, stress-inducing issue, and to be willing to give more in time and in treasure.  For failing to understand that when a nation goes to war, the whole nation goes to war, and does whatever it has to do to win it.  It shouldn't take an entertainer masquerading as a journalist to remind us of our most basic obligations to serve and protect us.  But, apparently, it does.

Most of all, for failing to understand what our enemies understand:  that fear is a weapon, and it can be weaponized against a nation like ours, one that has taken a long holiday from history in terms of understanding what it takes to protect a civilization, and the ideas that built it.

The War on Terror, as it has been called, will require paying for the government services that protect us on the front lines, and operate behind them and within the enemy camp itself to undermine and ultimately defeat them.  It will require political leadership that both requires that level of sacrifice, and offers transparency with regard to its own actions in leading the fight.  Perhaps most of all, it will require us to pay not only with our wallets, but also with our hearts.  The last thing that terrorists want is an America that continuously strives to live up to its ideals of equality and freedom.  They want an America filled with fear, willing to give up those ideals forever if doing so will buy even a little bit of safety.

It won't buy any at all.

We are at the precipice of destruction by our enemies, despite all of the annual exhortations to "Never Forget."  We have, sadly, forgotten what we felt on September 12, the day after.  We desperately need to remember it, before we let indulgence and fear consume our existence, our legacy, and our place in history.

In other words, before the terrorists have won.

The Other Opioid Crisis

You've no doubt heard all about the opioid crisis.  The one involving hundreds of thousands of victims of opioid overdoses, many of which have occurred in parts of the nation where job losses from globalization are as epidemic as the deaths themselves are.  The deaths that have driven thousands of lawsuits through the legal system, lawsuits that are, just now, starting to reach the endgame stage.  In one, in Oklahoma, filed by the state against Johnson & Johnson, regarded as the toughest litigant among drug companies, the result was a $572 million verdict in favor of Oklahoma's damages claims.

Despite the fact that the legal theories in these suits are all over the place when it comes to liability theories, and that each one, based on the facts, is wafer-thin at best, they are nevertheless supported by popular opinion.  The fact that the state of Oklahoma, no one's idea of a liberal paradise, would file a suit like this is a strong testament to that.  For once, big business lost big (although not as big as it could have lost) in a very red state.  And the loss is already having a ripple effect on the other pending suits.  Just this past week, Purdue Pharma, the makers of OxyContin, offered to fund a settlement pool of up to $12 billion and surrender ownership of OxyContin, in exchange for filing for bankruptcy.

This is precisely the sort of innovation-destroying, consumer-frustrating, blame-everyone-but-the-addicts-screwing-things-up litigation that the lawsuit-abuse folks on the conservative side of our great political divide love to complain about.  Here, however, they seem to be curiously silent.

I feel fairly certain that there's a connection between that fact and the fact that a significant number of opioid-related deaths are from Trump country.  Putting the matter bluntly, these are the deaths of white people from former factory and farming communities.  They see themselves differently from the way they see the drug-related deaths of African-Americans in poverty-ridden inner-city neighborhoods.  Those deaths have nothing to do with centuries of racism, and the poverty and despair that stems from it.  No, that's just because "those people" are "animals," in contrast to the hard-working white folks of the heartland.  If they chose to abuse prescription drugs rather than addressing their misery in a more constructive way (i.e., relocating, going back to school, voting for someone other than self-enriching Republicans), well, Trump voters are privileged folk.  Their privilege is as deep as the color of their skin, And, of course, just like their Fearless Leader, there's no arguing with them about it.

But there is, of course, another side to all of this.  In fact, there's a whole other opioid crisis that I'll wager you haven't heard about.  It's very real.  It's created an enormous amount of suffering.  And it's suffering that my wife and I take very, very personally.

It's this crisis.  The one in which people who, for entirely legitimate, medical, non-economic-distress-related reasons, need access to serious pain medication.  And can't get it, because of health care professionals more worried about protecting themselves from specious lawsuits than they are about fulfilling their professional and ethical obligations to the public.

And why do my wife and I take it so personally?

First, a word of full disclosure.  My wife and I are both lawyers; in fact, we are both partners in our own law firm.  Neither of us is a tort lawyer, so we have no interest or stake in the personal injury-medical malpractice mill.  There are no charges of hypocrisy, therefore, that can be fairly lobbed at either of us for what I am about to say.

And both of us have experienced personally the opioid backlash in medical treatment.

In my case, it was a consequence of a referral to an endodontist for a root canal.  After the procedure, I assumed he was going to give me a limited prescription for hydrocodone, or something similar.  You know what I got instead?  An offer for free Tylenol.  Tylenol.  An over-the-counter pain reliever that is fine for the occasional tension headache, but is less than worthless for the level of post-procedure pain that a root canal procedures.  Not only did the pain that the endodontist refuse to treat or even acknowledge keep me awake for nearly an entire week, but, at one point, it made me bite down on one of my rear molars so hard that I literally fractured it in half.  And had to go to yet another endodontist to have the fragments of that molar removed.  I've still got the empty space in the back of my mouth to remind me about it.

But that's nothing compared to what my poor wife has had to go through over the past four-plus weeks.  She had knee-replacement surgery at the very beginning of this month.  I remembered how my late father was give a morphine pump to use after his hip-replacement surgeries, so I had some idea of the pain level involved with a joint-replacement procedure.  I couldn't imagine that this wouldn't be treated the same way.

Well, guess what, folks?  It wasn't.  She was give a less-than-full-strength prescription medication--a very, very limited supply--and, you guess it, folks, Tylenol.  She's been home for the past few weeks, doing all of her physical therapy, recovering well ahead of schedule, getting back to work and serving her clients, because that's the type of person she is.  But she's been doing it without any real pain medication, and consequently with little or no sleep, for the past, I repeat, four weeks plus.  That's partly a tribute to her pain threshold, which I am always in awe of.  But it's also a tribute to her doctor's refusal to her doctor's refusal to prescribe any serious pain medication.  Even after she asked him to do so, he gave her a prescription of 10 pills at a dosage of 5 milligams.

Neither my wife nor I are addicts.  We fully understand the risks of addiction with certain types of medication.  We have always, in the past, when we were able to get prescription medication, used it in a responsible way, as prescribed, without asking for more than we needed.  We want to be able to continue to do so, and there clearly are thousands of Americans who are in exactly the same position we have been.  I am writing this on behalf of all of them, as well as for my wife and me.  I am pleading with the medical profession, and the companies that insure them, to not try to solve one opioid crisis by creating another--and, in the process, created a black market for opioids that will do nothing but exacerbate the initial crisis.

The mandate to do no harm works in more directions that one.  Opioids should not be overprescribed.  But they shouldn't be underprescribed, either.

The Rule Of Guns Has Replaced The Rule Of Law

And so we can now add El Paso and Dayton to the list of American cities, towns and communities that have been the victims of the NRA and the deranged individuals that it enables.

It was a tremendously, tragically long list prior to the addition of those two cities, one that included the names not just of places, but people.  People who did nothing to deserve being victims of random slaughter.  People whose dreams will never be fulfilled.  People whose potential, personal and vocational, will never benefit their families, their neighbors, or their country.  People whose absence, instead, leaves holes in the lives of all who were touched in any way by them, and the worst holes of all:  in the hearts of their families and friends.

As someone who believes both in the right to own and use firearms for legitimate, lawful purposes, and who has no less believed in common-sense gun regulations to prevent their illegitimate, unlawful purposes, I have despaired for decades about our ability as a society to move beyond "thoughts and prayers" and to enact legislation at a national level to ensure that Americans spend less time mourning the loss of innocent life, and more time living their lives outside of the shadow of random gun violence.

In particular, I have despaired over our national inability to recognize that the lion's share of gun rights advocacy does not stem from respect for the Second Amendment, but from a sick, deep-seated need to maintain the aristocracy of race that was baked into the foundation of the Republic at its inception.  I have written in the past about the slave patrols, but it is a point that cannot be underemphasized, especially in today's deeply divided political climate.  Here is an op-ed piece from the New York Times that discusses this disgusting piece of history in some detail.

I have to admit, however that, to a degree, that despair has been mitigated by recent sightings in the media of gun sanity.

I mean, it's one thing when Paul Krugman adds two plus two, and comes up with the connection between mass shootings and white nationalism.  He's been doing it for a while.  Or to see a network like CNN do the same thing.  CNN makes at least some effort, unlike Fox, to truly be fair and balanced.

But, in the wake of El Paso and Dayton, Krugman and CNN have found some unlikely company.

Take Joe Walsh, for example, who was part of the Tea Party wave that ended Nancy Pelosi's first reign as Speaker of the House of Representatives.  Back then, the Tea Party defined right-wing extremism in national politics; it almost looks tame compared to the forces that D***** T**** has unleashed.  Still, Walsh was and is no one's idea of a bleeding-heart liberal.

Except, perhaps now, on this issue.

And he's not alone.

He's been joined by David French of the National Review, the magazine that was founded by William F. Buckley, Jr. to redefine modern conservatism, and did so successfully.  French's new-found place on the side of the angels is evident not only in the pages of NR, but also on Twitter.

They've been joined, in turn, by S.E. Cupp, a CNN and Twitter personality who leans right on most issues, but can't at this point be said to do so on this one.

For crying out loud, they've been joined by Rupert Murdoch, the main press agent for the Reagan Revolution and everything that has followed in its wake.  I never thought I'd live to see the day when his New York Post would carry a cover editorial advocating the banning of assault weapons sales to the public.  But here we are.

And the scope of the gun violence problem in this county is not just reflected in the conservative voices finally calling for sensible gun regulations.  It's reflected in the pervasive fear we all now have that, every time we go out in public, we are a potential target.  All it takes now is a vehicle backfire in Times Square to make everyone feel the need to run for cover.  And not everyone feels safe venturing out to Times Square in the first place; people of color, in particular, are fearful of even the most seemingly harmless of pursuits, like going to the movies.  Or even the holiest of pursuits, like going to church.

How did we get here?

Well, as my earlier reference to slave patrols should tell you, we've always been here.

America began its existence as a frontier society, one that depended on a combination of violence and cheap labor for its economic growth.  In such a society, owning a gun is no more unusual than owning a horse--perhaps even less so.  And slavery provides the cheapest possible labor, short of automation, the human mind can devise.

As America expanded westward, and its economic growth began to depend less on the land and become more mercantile in nature, dependent on innovation and trade, guns and slaves became less and less a part of life in some parts of the nation.  If anything, they were viewed as obstacles to growth, as antiquated aspects of a more primitive, less peaceful society.  In other parts of the country, however, addiction to the potential of exploiting land for crops and natural resources took hold.  And, despite a Civil War that allegedly decided whether Americans were meant to be a free people, and not one defined by the master-and-slave relationship, that addiction never ended.

Why?  Who can really say?  I'm not writing here to provide a definitive answer, one that has eluded better historians than me.  But there seems one possibility that is blindingly obvious.

America was initially settled by Europeans who came from countries that had aristocracies, segments of the population that had their own legal and economic rights given to them at birth.  These rights were denied to those who were not aristocrats, or, at the very least, were restricted in their application to others.  Our Constitution, of course, was written to exclude the European idea of an aristocracy from the nation it helped to create.  Indeed, those who come to our shores from other counties are, as part of the naturalization process, required to renounce any aristocratic connections in order to become a citizen.

But that doesn't mean that all Americans don't aspire to an aristocratic lifestyle, even if it is one without formal titles.  And slavery, I contend, is the key to the development of the aristocratic mindset among many white Americans, especially white males.  After all the antebellum South had all of the formal characteristics of the old European aristocracies.  Legal and economic rights--indeed, personhood itself--were vested in the hands of a privileged few solely on the basis of hereditary characteristics, skin color in this case.  Those without privileges, those who were in fact viewed as property, took all of the risks and made all of the sacrifices, and those with privileges reaped all of the rewards.  All that was missing to link the American aristocracy of slavery to its European counterparts were courtesy titles.  And even variations of those made their way into the system.

And, on a fundamental level, that's what today's "economic discontent" is really all about.  It's not the unvarnished cry for social and financial justice that many in and out of the media try to pretend that it is.  If it were, they would leave behind the red states that have been bankrupted by decades of failed Republican policies, end their dependency on social programs largely funded by tax dollars from blue states, and start a new life based on a willingness to take whatever work might be available.  They would line up to do the work they claim immigrants are "taking" from them.  They would, in short, do what the best Americans--native-born and otherwise--have done for centuries before them.

But they won't do it.  In fact, they don't truly begrudge the work being done by people of color, instead of themselves.  They don't even mind receiving government aid, even as they decry creeping socialism.  They won't face the fact that they've voted for decades for a party that systematically exploits them.  What they really want is to be in charge.  Because, as white people, they see it as their birthright.  And lacking, in many cases, much in the way of formal education, they have no ability to grasp the complexity of the world around them, or the skills needed to survive in it.  Their entire view of life is, by modern standards, incredibly primitive.  Which is why it is not surprising that, as was the case with Mao Tse-tung, they see all power as coming out of the barrel of a gun.

You can find a more detailed analysis of the link between gun violence and white nationalism here; in fact, I have no objection to your taking a break from reading this post to read it (so long as you come back here afterwards, of course).  You can also see, here and here, how incredibly primitive the thinking of white nationalists is, especially when it comes to guns.  How in the world can anyone, with the most pro-gun political party in history in full charge of the federal and most of the state governments, legitimately feel that their Second Amendment rights need to be "double-checked" by a random display of firepower in an otherwise peaceful setting?  This is not the action of someone with confidence in civil authority.  This is the action of someone who believes it's everyone for themselves, because they're convinced that all that matters is G-d being on the side of white men.

This is the scenario that serial killers with semi-automatic rifles with bump stocks and high-capacity magazines take advantage of.  We have been told by gun-rights advocates, over and over again, that all we need to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.  But how are we supposed to tell?  The man in the Wal-Mart described in the linked articles above could have been either; fortunately, someone intervened before he had a chance to identify himself through casualties.  This is madness.  The only answer to the madness is the one that gun advocates believe in, but don't dare say out loud:  "You can tell they're good guys; they all have white skin."  Does that sound prejudiced to you?  Shouldn't it?  Do you doubt that the Wal-Mart incident would have been as peaceful if the man with the piece had been black?

Then consider this.

The wave of gun violence that has dominated our national conversation and filled all of us with fear began after the election of the first African-American President in our history.  It began slowly, largely with single-victim attacks, and almost all of them involving young men of color.  Florida even passed a law modifying the common-law definition of self-defense, allowing people to "stand their ground" anywhere based on an entirely subjective view of personal danger.  In practice, the law has become a hunting license to kill young men of color with impunity.

And then, with a minority of the popular vote, D***** T**** became President, with a Republican Congress and most of the states under Republican control.  And the gun violence exploded to epidemic levels.

Why should anyone be surprised?  T**** came to office with a history of racism--and not just against African-Americans--as long as your arm, that continued right into his Presidency.  The civil rights violations by his family's real estate company.  The war against the Central Park Five, even after their exoneration through DNA evidence.  The anti-Semitic remark about wanting his money to be counted by men with "beanies."  The vicious mocking of a disabled reporter.  The references to Mexicans as criminals and Central Americans as animals.  Do I have to go on?

The point is this:  T**** has never hidden who he is when it comes to race.  He's practically beaten the rest of us over the head with it.  He has always worked overtime to market himself to his core audience.   He has basically told them to come out of the woodwork and from under the rocks, because, whether by rhetoric or pardons, he'll protect you.  And they have absolutely gotten the message, while the rest of us pay for that fact dearly.  Which is why no one, no matter the tenor of T****'s more recent remarks, should expect anything to change so long as he is President.

Or so long as Mitch McCONnell is the majority leader in the U.S. Senate.

Recent changes in polling data has led McCONnell to write an op-ed piece for the New York Times, warning Democrats not to completely do away with the filibuster should they take control of the Senate after the 2020 election.  If they do, they'll regret it in the long run, as they did when they ended filibusters for federal district and circuit court nominations the last time they controlled the chamber, then lost it to the Republicans, who promptly extended the new rule to all presidential nominations, including Supreme Court justices.

In the piece, which you can read here, if you haven't done so already, McCONnell attempts to make the case that the filibuster, although not a power explicitly granted by the text of the Constitution, is one that the Constitution's overall design actually encourages, in order to ensure than any legislation passed by Congress is supported as broadly as possible.  While it's true that the rule was designed to promote debate, and to prevent radical changes by slender majorities, the facts demonstrate that these goes have not exactly been at the forefront of McCONnell's leadership of the Senate.

Let's leave aside the fact that, if the framers of the Constitution wanted all legislation to be approved by a congressional supermajority, they could very easily have done so, as they did in fact with respect to treaties.  As the late President Gerald Ford once said, quoting the late Governor Al Smith of New York, let's look at the record.

McCONnell interpreted Democratic filibusters of some underqualified judicial nominations made by then-President George W. Bush as an excuse in the Obama era as a justification, at a moment of crisis not just in the United States but the world, to filibuster nearly every single initiative of Obama's that needed to move through through Congress, once the afterglow of the change in Administrations had faded.  Stop me if you've heard this one before, Mr. Majority Leader:

We have a new president with an approval rating in the 70 percent area. We do not take him on frontally. We find issues where we can win, and we begin to take him down, one issue at a time. We create an inventory of losses, so it’s Obama lost on this, Obama lost on that. And we wait for the time where the image has been damaged to the point where we can take him on.

These are not the words of someone who wants to move legislation supported by a broad majority, or even a simple one.  Those are the words of a man whose goal, in an era where the political and social culture of the country has turned against him, is to block as much legislation as he possibly can.  In short, they are Mitch McCONnell's words, at the beginning of the Obama Administration.  Take a look if you don't believe me.

Indeed, the only real reason McCONnell hasn't tried to eliminate the filibuster altogether is that he knows that the legislation that would get through a Republican Congress, especially with input from a President like T****, would ultimately wipe his party almost completely off the map once the American people learned how that legislation would affect them.  Far better to have Senate Democrats serve as a foil to disguise the ambitions such legislation would advance, while McCONnell and his cronies focus on what does the most to get them out of bed in the morning:  appointing right-wing judges to lifetime seats in the federal judiciary, so that those judges can, without opposition, wreck havoc on the future of this country--especially when it comes to sensible gun regulation.

This, unfortunately, is what we are facing.  A national culture of random violence that potentially menaces every single American.  A culture that is fueled by the ancient divisions that form part of the bedrock of our history.  And a political system that, for the moment, is frozen in paralysis by men who represent the minority view not only on gun legislation, but on almost every area of public policy.  Even worse, they may not even represent their own country.  T**** alone does not suffer from this problem; so does McCONnell.

If this feels too much like a lengthy rhetorical journey to despair, it needn't be.  It shouldn't be.  For the sake of all the lives that have been needlessly lost, and for the sake of the lives we may be able to proactively save by our actions, despair is a luxury we truly cannot afford.

I have written at this length, in this level of detail, in the hope of emphasizing the importance of being a part of next year's election in every possible way you can.  Lives are at stake.  Democracy is at stake.  America is at stake.

Don't believe that there's nothing you can do to take the target off of your back, and all of our backs.  You know what you need to do.  Do it.