Through Putin’s Eyes

“The liberal idea… has come into conflict with the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population” – Russian President Vladimir Putin

Liberal and Undemocratic

“The liberal idea is obsolete:” that’s what Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said in the Financial Times of London. In the interview, he was commenting specifically about immigration, a worldwide issue of contention.  Putin claims that the “liberal” view of helping immigrants, from the war-torn Middle East in Europe, and from Central America in the United States; is “undemocratic.”

His use of the word “liberal” shouldn’t be confused with the American usage contrasted to “conservative.”  Liberal to Putin are the governments that freely elect representatives and recognize the value in all citizens, regardless of race or nation of origin. Liberal in his sense would be better contrasted with authoritarian.  But he cloaks his view in the language of democracy, claiming a majority is being ignored.

His argument:  the “liberal governments” are undemocratic because “vast majorities” of Europe and the United States are against immigration, and “liberal” governments are forcing them to accept migrants. According to the Russian, those migrants “…can kill, plunder and rape with impunity because their rights as migrants have to be protected.”

It sounds a lot like President Trump’s 2015 speech announcing his candidacy for President: “When Mexico sends it’s people…They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

It’s supposed to.

It’s the Economy

The Russian Government has a vested interest in the failure of “liberal” ideas in Europe and the United States.  Putin needs to convince his own Russian people that the nationalistic autocracy he represents is “better for the people” than the “liberal” democracies they see in Europe.  His ideas are catching on: Hungary, Poland, and Austria have elected governments with similar beliefs.

Nationalism, the political ideology that brought disaster in World War II, is burning again throughout the “western world.”  Putin is providing the fuel for that fire.  He is financing political parties in many nations, and Russian intelligence continues their successful internet attack efforts. The US election of 2016, with the ascendancy of Donald Trump, is the most successful example of their influence.

It’s not that Putin necessarily controls Trump, though that possibility remains.  It’s that the actions of Trump in weakening traditional American alliances, supporting nationalism, and encouraging racism in the United States; have played into the Russian strategy.  It doesn’t hurt Putin that today was the day that Trump crossed over into North Korea to embrace another dictator, Kim, without gaining any concessions from him.

Putin wants a weak Russian economy to be able to compete in Europe. But the European Union dominates the region, and since Russia doesn’t have the ability to compete, his goal is to bring the EU down, by supporting nationalist parties throughout.  The vote in the United Kingdom to break out of the EU, Brexit, was a great victory for him.

To What End

“Liberal” philosophy:  that more developed nations have a responsibility to help those less developed, is under attack.  “Liberal” ideals:  freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and a responsibility to help everyone in a society; are being questioned.  The foundations of the United States written in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights are now being challenged, both from outside and from within.

Putin offers the same choice that former Trump advisor Steve Bannon advocated:  a white, Northern European world alliance.  Bannon is working inside Europe promoting the idea, Trump is pushing the United States in that direction, and Putin is poised to be “the winner.”   In their view, the losers would be the rest of the non-white world.

But the real losers would be the peoples of the “liberal” nations who would lose their right to free speech and the rest, in order to stifle dissent to the autocrats.  We see it happening:  Putin has murdered reporters, he and Trump joke about the press and “fake news,” and Trump shakes hands with the Mohammad bin Salman, the murderer of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.  

The statement by Putin should be no surprise.  What should be a surprise, but isn’t:  the President of the United States has nothing but smiles and handshakes for the Russian, joking about Russian meddling in American elections. It should provide Americans with another good reason to see Mr. Trump out of office in 2020.

Democratic Debates

Night One

So if there’s one thing for sure about the first ten Democrats on the stage Wednesday night, it is that, with one exception, they agree on most things.  They all want a public option for medical care, some want a mix of private and public insurance, and some just want public.  

Climate change is a concern for all of the candidates.  Jay Inslee, Washington Governor, has made it the focus of his campaign, and builds all of his other issues through an environmental lense, but they ALL recognize the environment as a priority.

While Senator Warren and several others had less to say about it, clearly immigration is a major issue for everyone.  Julian Castro, former Mayor of San Antonio and Housing Secretary, made an impassioned case for his immigration plan, then demanded that the other candidates pledge to support it.  Others seemed to agree, with New Jersey Senator Cory Booker expanding on the need to end underlying racism in our country.

Minnesota’s Senator Amy Klobuchar made strong points, but didn’t seem to have the “stage presence.” Her argument, that she is an effective Senator who can win in red counties, didn’t seem to catch on.  She also took a more moderate path.

On one end of the stage, New York’s Mayor DeBlasio emphasized the need for the Democrats to get back to the “Party” of workers, and Ohio’s Congressman Tim Ryan called for the Party to regain the confidence of the “forgotten worker.”  On the other end, former Maryland Congressman John Delaney was the exception, calling for bipartisanship and limited goals and clearly taking the most moderate stand on that stage.

While there were a few mentions of President Trump, with Governor Inslee and Secretary Castro stating the need to say “adios” to him; oddly he wasn’t the bête noire of the night. That honor fell to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.  One problem the candidates couldn’t solve, was what to do if they became President and McConnell remained in control of the Senate.  Senator Warren would lead popular movement against him, Congressman Delaney find a way to make a deal, and the rest depend on a Democratic wave to bring a Senate majority.

Overall, Warren started “on fire” but seemed to fade as the night went on.  However, with her frontrunner status on the stage, she didn’t hurt herself either.  Booker acquitted himself well, getting the most speaking time on the night.  The surprise of the night was Castro; he showed himself as intense, articulate, and well prepared.  His status went up.  

Klobuchar was solid but understated.  Beto O’Rourke started slowly (and looked exhausted) but improved as the night went on. Jay Inslee got the chance to push his environmental focus, but seemed to get left out of much of the rest of the debate. Congressman Tulsi Gabbard seemed over-rehearsed and unwilling to jump into the debate.  She did push Tim Ryan into supporting the war in Afghanistan, a stand the rest of the Party is unlikely to support.  

DeBlasio came off as “New York” tough, not willing to sit back and wait his turn.  That toughness may appeal to Democrats afraid of a candidate who can’t stand up to Trump.  Ryan made his points, but didn’t seem as prepared to talk about issues other than jobs. And John Delaney seems out of step with the center of the Democratic Party, trying to take the moderate view. We’ll see if Joe Biden will have the same problem tonight.

Night Two

Senator Kamala Harris: this was the night she broke out of the pack.  She was the same intelligent, concise and compassionate speaker we heard in the Judiciary Committee hearings.  She was solid, and placed herself in the “top tier” of candidates.  And, of all of the candidates for President, she was the one that highlighted the great flaws in Joe Biden.

Biden, still articulate, looked “dapper;” but has so much to defend.  A career in public service stretching back to the late 1970’s; his history gives opponents the opportunity to litigate every controversial issue of the past fifty years.  Harris questioned Biden’s stand on school busing for desegregation back in the early 80’s.  She was able to underline Democrat’s biggest concern:  she was a child on a bus, he was a US Senator already at the peak of power, almost a half century ago, in short, he is too old.

Biden tried to defend his stand, but the language of school desegregation busing:  de jure and de facto, court ordered versus agency ordered; is ancient.  The key words to explain no longer have meaning, you have to define the definition, and in the end he sounded like he was dissembling, not explaining.

Pete Buttigieg was articulate, and stood firm under the questioning about the police shooting in South Bend.  He took a chance, clearly admitting that he failed to diversify his police force, but was still able to expand the conversation from South Bend to the national issue of institutional racism.

Senator Bernie Sanders: it’s difficult for me to take a dispassionate view of him.  His answers haven’t changed in the past decade, but his solutions all depend on the “Bernie” revolution.  There is no room for incrementalism in his plan; it is all or nothing.  And since I don’t believe we will ever reach it all, I find a lot of what he says empty.  

Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado tried to find room in the “center lane” of the Party, but is no master of the forty-five second answer.  He has a nuanced view, one that requires explanation, and takes a while to “wind up” to his answer.  Meanwhile, the debate moved on.

Senator Gillibrand made a strong case as for women.  She demanded a place for women in “the room where it happens,” and wants to be the one. She also highlighted her plan, echoed by Buttigieg, to clean up politics.   Her view:  if we don’t fix politics, nothing else happens.  

Governor Hickenlooper staked out his place as a problem solver and a centrist, even expressing willingness to work with the petroleum companies in climate change.  And Mr. Yang emphasized his solution:  give everyone a base pay, and the issues created by poverty fade.

Congressman Swalwell of California seemed to be left out of much of the conversation, but stood out on the pivotal issue of gun violence.  Like Inslee on climate the night before, the Congressman lead on his willingness to remove assault rifles from American life, going farther than any other candidate.

And Ms. Williamson has the “Beatles” answer to defeating Trump:  “All you need is Love (da, da-da, da-da.)”

Harris was the clear winner on the debate stage.  Biden defended himself as a man who gets things done, but spent much of the night on the defensive.  Buttigieg, on a night some predicted as the end of his campaign, found a way to continue to reach more voters.  Sanders was Sanders; like him and he sounds great, but he did little to convert others. The others chimed in, but those three stood out.

It’s over a year from the Convention

The Democratic Convention starts on July 13, 2020 in Milwaukee.  It’s still a political lifetime away.  Here’s the one-word takeaway from the first of many debates in the Democratic Party.

            Biden – vulnerable

            Warren – got a plan

            Sanders – same plan as before

            Harris – I can take on Trump

            Buttigieg – don’t count me out

            Booker – still needs to connect

            Castro – I’m here.

The rest have a way to go to prove their impact.  But we have a way to go, and politics can change overnight; stay tuned.

A Plan for the Border

The United States has created a crisis on the Southern Border.  Intentionally or not, the Trump Administration policies have failed to deal with the root causes. Because of that thousands are “fleeing the nightmare” (Pete Buttigieg’s words) of Central America.  What’s the plan now, and how can we “fix” this?

The Faucet

So what is the Trump Administration trying to do?  First, they are discontinuing programs in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala that were trying to improve conditions.  By doing this, they are guaranteeing that the root cause of the migration; escaping the poverty and violence for a better life in America, will continue (sounds pretty American, doesn’t it – from the Pilgrims to An American Tail.)   

So the concept of “closing the hose at the faucet” isn’t going to happen.  The migrants will continue to come; whatever they face on the journey or at the border, it’s better than what they face at home. Parents will continue to send children, hoping that at least they will have a chance.  Mexico has neither the resources nor the will to prevent them from entering, and cannot absorb them into their economy.

The Law

There are two opportunities for a migrant to claim the legal status of asylum.  The “rules” are laid out in the United Nations’ Refugee Treaty of 1951.  The first opportunity is to claim asylum in the “first” safe country the refugee gets to.  President Trump would like Mexico to be that “first” nation, making all of the migrants their problem.  

The second is that refugees can claim a third nation as their place to claim asylum, and transit other states to get there.  That is what is occurring today, Central American migrants are claiming the “right” to transit Mexico to reach the United States.  Mexico, also a signer of the treaty, is fulfilling their obligation by allowing migrants to cross.

So here they come.  As a treaty signer, the United States has to recognize their right to claim asylum.  We are required to allow them access to the Courts to prove their claim, and we have to accept them into the United States if their claim is found valid.

The Trump Administration denies these immigrants access to Court, by not letting them enter at the “Legal Points of Entry.”  Thousands wait, while only a few are allowed “in” each day.  By doing this, the Administration is generating all of the other problems.

Forcing the Choice

If an immigrant cannot legally cross the border, their only other option to claim asylum is to cross the border illegally, get into US custody, and make their claim in court. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that they are crossing wherever they can, through wilderness and desert, and across the river.  Two died yesterday, drowned in the Rio Grande.  Four died last weekend, dead of dehydration in the desert, toddlers among them.

Because the border crossings are choked to near closed, migrants are forced to try to enter illegally and “THE WALL” becomes the symbol.  The argument goes:  if migrants are crossing river, desert and mountains to get into the US, we can wall them out by building a physical barrier.  Then they won’t try.

Of course, that’s not true; migrants will continue to try to cross, whatever the barrier.  What “THE WALL” would do is make crossing a more expensive effort, requiring more expertise.  “THE WALL” will make the “coyotes,” paid to help in the crossing, indispensible.   They will know where WALL weaknesses are, whether it is tunnels, or gaps, or ladders, or bribed officials. And they will take advantage of the migrants even more.

The Camps

The migrants get here: one way or another they reach US soil and say the “magic words” of asylum.  In the past both individuals and families were processed. They were  checked for criminal backgrounds, then released on “probation” until a legal asylum hearing could be held.  Contrary to what the current Administration claims, 85 to 90% returned for the hearings.  When there were surges of migrants in the past, the reaction was to send more lawyers and judges so that hearings could be expedited.

The Trump administration determined that crossing the border outside of the legal “points of entry” is a crime so serious, that all of the crossers must be held in custody. Since the US cannot hold children in “prison,” they are separated from their parents and given to a different Federal department to be cared for.

With the surge of migration, the need to “detain” all of the illegal crossers meant the need for more and more detention centers.  The requirement to not imprison children meant the need for “kiddie centers.” Overcrowding was inevitable, as were abuses.  

There was no increase in judges or attorneys, and now the asylum case backlog is stretching over two years.  This means those in detention are there for a very long time. Kids are literally growing up apart from the parents and families.  It is the worst of all possibilities:  more migrants are coming. They can’t legally get in so they come in illegally, and the US ends up with thousands in custody.

Solution

The obvious long-term solution is to go back to the root cause of migration:  the poverty and crime in the “Northern Triangle” of Central America.  The billions of dollars of WALL would be better spent on trying to change the home environment of those folks, who live in countries with some of the highest murder rates in the world.  Long-term, turn off the faucet, and the water will stop running.

But that is long-term, a solution that will take years.  Meanwhile, the migrants are coming.

The short-term answer is to stop trying to block the border, and send lawyers and judges.  Allow migrants their legal right to claim asylum, and adjudicate their claim as quickly as fairly as possible.  Let families and non-criminal migrants to live in the United States, cared for by relatives and non-profit agencies, until their court date is reached.  

The United States doesn’t need camps: detention, relocation, or concentration. We don’t need WALL.  What America needs is to follow our legal obligations under the treaty, and our moral obligations as human beings.  It not only is the right thing to do, it is the best choice for America. 

Comfortably Numb

There used to be things that would outrage us.  We heard it on the news, and all of us, as a society, would be shocked.  It created conversations at the office and on the bus; media commentators spoke eloquently about how we needed to change. And sometimes things changed, and THAT event, whatever THAT event was, wouldn’t happen again.

But now there are actions and accusations that we just accept.  The modern phrase is, “…it’s baked in the cake;” nothing that can be done.  This week: a twelve year old is shot and killed in Newark, Ohio, the President accused of sexual assault, children abused by the Border Patrol; it’s all “just part of the news.”  It’s not shocking, or disturbing to most.  And to many, it’s called “Fake News,” the all-purpose excuse for ignoring anything that might be uncomfortable.

Unacceptable

What happened to us? How did we get so calloused to this awful reality?  

President Donald Trump was accused of sexual assault this weekend.  If it had been Barack Obama, or George W Bush, or when Bill Clinton was actually accused; the headlines in the papers, and the commentators on television made it the number one story.  Here’s a challenge:  without looking it up, who accused Trump?

Sure, we can Google it, but we have to.  We didn’t have to Google Monica Lewinsky.   Jean Carroll’s story hardly made a dent in the coverage.  We accept a President who may have committed multiple sexual assaults. If you don’t believe he did, that it’s “fake news,” then at best you are accepting a President who answers the sexual assault charges with, “…she’s not my type.” So, Mr. President, if she was your type it would be OK.

A man shoots a child in Newark, Ohio, and the twelve year old dies.  She was standing on the front porch on a summer evening.  We know the eighteen-year old assailant has “blackouts” when he commits violent acts, but we don’t know how he got the gun.

There have been eight shootings at US schools this year (NYT), three killed and fifteen wounded.  Sounds like casualties from a war zone.  This is just part of the constant “hum” of news, it hardly makes more than a two-day dent.  Nothing changes; no one is able to do more than “…thoughts and prayers,” or maybe suggest we need to arm students to shoot other students.

Too Much?

So what is it, what has completely numbed us to these horrific events?  

First, there is the sheer volume of information that we access, everyday.  It used to be thirty minutes between six and seven in the evening, delivered by Huntley-Brinkley, or Cronkite, or Jennings, or what we chose to read in the papers.  We trusted their voices and their judgments on what was important, and they filtered what we cared about, and what we never knew.  

Now we access everything. It’s not just twenty-four hour news:  Fox, MSNBC, CNN and the rest.  We are leashed to the Internet; to the alerts coming across the IPhone screen, and instant accessiblility to “search.”  To use a well-worn analogy, we used to drink from a water fountain, now we are exposed to the open end of a fire hose.  If we open our mouths a little, we are drowned with information.  So we keep our mouths closed. 

That’s an excuse, by the way, not a reason.  We can be our own editors, what we trusted others to do for us in the “old days.” We can choose our sources, decide our concerns, and find out the stories.  The sheer volume of information is a problem, but covering our faces and crying “fake news” isn’t the answer.

We Must Be Better

Yesterday I wrote about children being held by the US Government, without proper care.  Some people commented on it, others ignored it (they edited me out.)  This should be a moment of national outrage:  Trumper or Democrat, news consumer or avoider.  Instead, it too has been rolled into the volume of noise.  The Border Patrol moved the children away; it’s over. Now, some are back.

Shouldn’t we be worried even more about where those children went?  Supposedly, they are now in a tent city, in Texas, in the middle of summer. Are they being cared for, do they have air conditioning, showers, food?  Don’t we have the right to know as Americans about what America is doing to the defenseless?

Surprisingly, I’m not a Pink Floyd fan.  But they have the words to America today, from Comfortably Numb: 

            “the child is grown, the dream is gone

             and I have become, comfortably numb”

America – this cannot be us. We cannot be so wrapped up in ourselves that we let all of this go on without comment, and without action.  Americans cannot be drugged by “fake news” and go comfortably numb.  We are better than that.

Not in America

“There is a Stench” No Soap and Overcrowding in a Detention Center for Migrant Children – 6/21/19, New York Times

Families on the Border

America was justifiably outraged a year ago with the US policy of taking children from their parents at the border.  Despite what the President repeatedly said and continues to say, it was new. The Trump Administration ordered the Border Patrol to re-interpret the law.  Before, parents and children were kept together, and parents were released into the community, often with some kind of security device (ankle band.)  Over ninety percent came back for their asylum hearings, determining whether they could stay in the United States or not.

The Trump Administration determined that the misdemeanor violation of crossing the border outside of the legal points of entry was now considered criminal (kind of like saying that speeding tickets get a prison term) and took children away from their “criminal” parents. The parents were then held in detention, prisons of one kind or another.  The children were turned over to another agency, the Department of Health and Human Services. They were sent all over the country.

When the extent of the child separation program was revealed, it outraged US citizens. There were nationwide protests, and the President called the program off.  But records weren’t kept properly, and it was difficult, if not impossible, to return all the children to their parents.  The horror is, hundreds have not been reunited even today.

The New Reality

Now there is a new children’s crisis at the border.  Parents in the Northern Triangle of Central America, faced with poverty and violence in their own countries, are paying to send their children to America for a chance at a better life.  Most travel with older siblings, or aunts, uncles, and friends; some come with strangers.  When they cross the border and are picked up, the Border Patrol, legitimately worried about child trafficking, separates the children from the non-custodial adults.

The system then is supposed to process the child, and place them with relatives here in the United States, or in foster care until their legal status can be worked out.  The Border Patrol is not designed or prepared to care for kids, and is only supposed to hold the children for seventy-two hours:  three days.

Kids in Detention

But the process is overwhelmed.  Kids aren’t being held for three days, but for weeks.  

They don’t have clean clothes, or soap, or toothbrushes.  They are sleeping on cement floors, covered in aluminum foil blankets.  Toddlers – Toddlers don’t have diapers, and the older children are trying to care for them.  Meals, three of them a day, consist of instant oatmeal for breakfast, instant noodles for lunch, a frozen burrito for dinner, and a cookie and a juice box: every day.

The guards, and they are guards, not caretakers; are wearing full uniform, weapons, and face masks to cut down on the stench of unwashed bodies and soiled pants.  The children are locked down, given little time, if any, to go outside.  But even when they are let out, there is no “play,” it’s all about survival.

This is not a foreign country, some far away place where we can shake our heads at the inhumanity of it all.  No, this is Clint, Texas, on the outskirts of El Paso, just down the road on I-10. There, and in several other Border “facilities” – all in the United States, WE are abusing children.  It is WE – because these actions are taken by the United States Government in our name, supposedly for us.  

Place Blame Later, Act NOW

If this were happening in another country, WE, the United States, would be screaming, sending aid, supplies, and caretakers.  This is in Texas; why aren’t these children being taken to  San Elizario High School nearby, for showers and care.  Why aren’t they getting the free lunches being offered NOW at the school, much better than the instant noodles; why are they being held imprisoned like toddler convicts?

Is this some part of the “dis-incentive,” to deter families in Central America from sending their children to the United States?  Is this Presidential Advisor Stephen Miller’s new brainchild, deterrence using kids?  Or is this just an administrative nightmare, the result of a system overwhelmed by the changing demands of politicians, and the growing humanitarian crisis in the Northern Triangle that is spilling up to the US Border.  

It doesn’t Matter

Call up Dr. Jeannie Meza-Chavez, the Superintendent of the San Elizario Independent School District.  Get the districts buses, and get the kids out of “detention” and over to the high school. Have her ask her teaching staff for volunteers to help the kids get cleaned up, and changed.  They are teachers, they will come.  Call the Goodwill and Salvation Army Stores – there are several in the El Paso area.  Get towels and clothes for the kids. Use the school’s free lunch program to get them some healthy food.  Need some other stuff:  there are twenty-two Walgreen’s in El Paso.  That’s where to find toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, shampoo, and diapers.

Then pull out the gym and wrestling mats and let those kids get some sleep.

Sure this will cost a few thousand dollars.  But this is how WE respond to kids in trouble.  WE don’t use kids as examples, or hostages to try to get something from Democrats in Congress, or deterrence.  It takes the will to make one phone call, to Dr. Meza-Chavez.  She will help – because wherever they came from, these are kids.

This is what Americans do. We don’t let kids suffer, whatever the reason. 

 Not here, not in America.

Post Script

Monday evening the updates said the kids in Clint were moved. Where, how, and what the new conditions are like we don’t know. While it now may not require the intervention of the local schools in Clint, it has simply shifted the problem to somewhere else, a Border Patrol “shell game.”

Here’s Sir Elton himself from 1971 – Madman Across the Water

Madman across the water

Almost two years ago, President Trump invoked Elton John songs by calling North Korea’s leader Kim “Rocket Man.”  At the time, I wrote an essay on Trump World about the events around the North Korean crisis, titled Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.  To give Mr. Trump some credit, North Korea hasn’t tested nuclear weapons since his “fire and fury” threat.  However, after two summits there isn’t a hint of an agreement, and threats to the contrary, the United States is maintaining the policy of Clinton, Bush, and Obama. The US continues actions to keep North Korea in check by using China’s influence and US led economic sanctions, and pushes off any solution to the next Presidency.  It’s worked so far.

captain fantastic or the brown dirt cowboy

To expand our Elton John analogy, President Trump is governing with the Madman Across the Water theory.  In just the past few weeks, he threatened to:

• Launch an attack on Iran, bombs almost on the way, then stopped it;
• Roundup millions of undocumented aliens in the US and deport them, postponed the raids;
• Levy a tariff on Mexico unless they stopped migrants, then dropped it;
• accept campaign aid from foreign nations, including Russia, and then said he might call the FBI if it happened.

President Trump threatens, blusters, and scares Americans and the rest of  the world.  Foreign leaders don’t know what to think, even after the State Department quietly tells them to ignore the noise.  Americans hear the same advice from Republican politicians, “don’t worry about what the President says; watch what he does.”  

The United Kingdom and other allies are afraid to share intelligence information with the US because they don’t trust Trump. Seemingly, neither do the American intelligence agencies. They’ve prepared attacks on Russian network infrastructure without briefing the President, afraid that he would cancel the preparations, or tell the Russians.    

The United States did respond to Iran’s attack on a drone.  While there are few details available, US Cyber Command launched a serious attack on the Iranian network infrastructure, certainly a more proportional response than a bombing raid on the Iranian mainland.  Attack US unmanned aircraft, and the response is to disrupt your computer networks; an “eye for an eye.”

When Trump backs off, John Bolton, the President’s National Security Advisor, continues as the “Madman”proxy. Bolton continues to rattle his “saber,” threatening military action.  It’s a madman battle to the maddest.  

I’m still standing

Threaten bombing and killing, then disrupt computer networks.  Allies worry about Presidential security, then a US operation against Russia is leaked in the New York Times. Threaten Mexican and American citizens with a debilitating tariff, then claim victory for a deal already made before the threats.  Keep everyone, friend and foe, off-balance and worried.

There are serious problems with Madman diplomacy, ones that the United States is just now experiencing.  If Trump is going to be the Madman, sooner of later someone is going to call the bluff:  is he really mad, or just a noisy and arrogant bully, something that fits Donald Trump’s entire life?  And the question for all Americans is:  if all of the bluff and bluster turns out to be hot air, what forces will be necessary to achieve American goals?  

funeral for a friend

Unlike the past ninety years of American Presidents, Mr. Trump shows no interest in developing coalitions.  The Allies of World War II; Truman’s grand plan of treaties with NATO, CENTO, and SEATO;  Bush 41’s coalition to fight the Persian Gulf War; Bush 43’s coalition in Afghanistan; Obama’s signatories for the Iran Nuclear Deal:  every President has determined that we need friends in the world to achieve our goals.  Every President that is, except Donald Trump.  His decision is that we are better in “one on one” situations, when our military and economic power “wins” every time.  

It’s the Trump Doctrine; multi-lateral treaties and actions are out, bi-lateral interactions are in. The problem is, when the bluff is called, it will it be only American soldiers sent to fight, and only Americans bearing the burdens.  In the current confrontation with Iran, our transactional partners, Israel and Saudi Arabia, are happy that the United States is rebalancing the Middle East in their favor.  While they will likely allow their bases to be used as staging grounds, and the Saudis will kick-in a few billion petro dollars, it will be Americans who fight and die in an armed conflict with Iran.

I guess that’s why they call it the blues

The United States President has insulted our allies and complimented our enemies.  We have bullied Mexico and Canada, and taken sides in the internal actions of the European Union.  Under the current administration, to be a friend of the United States is to be threatened and harassed, under the guise, as Mr. Trump would say, of being “honest with our friends.”  

Oh, but to be an enemy. North Korea’s Kim, treated with the upmost respect despite being a murderous dictator.  Vladimir Putin is believed over our own intelligence agencies. President Xi of China is wined and dined; no word spoken of the anniversary of Tiananmen Square.  The only “bad guys:”  Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and of course, Angela Merckel and John McCain.

Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word

The Madman Theory is a short-term, transactional kind of solution. It doesn’t build an architecture of world interaction, it instead responds to each crisis as “stand alone.”  Just because a nation is “our friend” today, doesn’t mean anything for tomorrow.  We all know those kinds of folks, at work or in society.  We know there is no loyalty, no trust to be found; only what benefits them.  And when everything falls apart, they find themselves alone. 

Let’s hope that’s not America’s fate.

Failing the Test

Education – Part 3 – In every political campaign (at least the good ones) there is a “book,” outlining the issues the candidate will face, and the arguments and positions the candidate takes.  It is so everyone on the campaign is literally on “the same page” when it comes to that issue.  I’m not running for office, but over the next several weeks, I will be presenting a series of issues for my “briefing book.”

Failing the test

When I was the Dean of Students at our local high school, one of the worst parts of my job was attending parent/teacher meetings where staff talked about the behavior problems of kids.  It wasn’t because of the kids actions; the hard part was listening to my colleagues use “educationese” to the parents.  They talked about “behavioral norms” and “learning objectives” and “peer interactions.”  Many parents didn’t get it:  I considered it my job to translate those terms into “regular English” for them, and their kids. The “educators,” intentionally or not, were talking over their heads, and parents and kids rightfully resented it.

Standardized testing – giving students multiple commercially produced tests – creates an entire world of “educationese” for parents and students.  It sounds complicated, important, and seems to be of enormous value. Kids, parents, and teachers are threatened by the impact of results, and are left mystified about what they really mean.  

American educational leaders and politicians have made standardized testing more important than grades,  individual teacher evaluation, and student potential and progress.  We have turned over those decisions to commercial test creators, with a vested interest in making “their tests” important.  With all of that power, the tests better be meaningful. The problem:   they aren’t.

the Cost

In 2012, the estimated cost for standardized testing in US public schools was $1.7 Billion (Education Week.) Seven years later that cost is likely to have grown, but, frankly, it is still a very small percentage of the overall costs in public education.

More significantly, standardized tests cost time.  Many school districts spend twelve days or more on tests a year, that’s over two weeks of time in a thirty-six week school year.  When the costs of teachers administrating the tests and building operational costs are added in, the price goes up.

But it’s not about the money.  The question is:  does the “theory” of standardized testing actually work?  It goes like this:  take a vast number of students, and give them identical tests to try to develop a “scientific metric” (meaning numbers) evaluating what they know, where they rate among their peers, and their ranking against “historic” scores from the past.  It’s a statistician’s dream:  percentiles, rankings, base numbers, fractional growth coefficients, and the “dreaded” annual yearly progress.

figures lie

There is nothing more convincing than numbers on paper.  “The Results” carry a weight of truth that’s difficult to argue.  “It’s right here in the scores,” an administrator can say, “you don’t have any ‘facts’ to argue against them.”

My first principal, a powerful old-school educator from Alabama, had a favorite phrase:  “figures lie, and liars figure.”  

A good friend of mine, a successful businessman, responding to one of my essays on education by saying:

“The problem was never a need for quantitatively more education. It was misguided education.”  He added: “They (students) need to learn how to work as part of a team. They need to learn how to solve complex problems involving customers. Today’s curriculums teach too much unneeded stuff. ‘Facts’ that can be conjured up on Google need not be taught.” 

Both of these men are right, and have put their finger directly on the problem of basing “success or failure” in education on standardized tests. Standardized tests require “objectifying” all problems into multiple-choice answers.  What my business friend demands is that students learn how to work together on complex problems, involving interactions with others. That’s not a problem that can be broken down into an “objectified” single answer, an “A,B, C or D” choice.  It demonstrates how this kind of testing misses the target.  Instead of learning skills for real world outcomes, students are tested for objective and usually rote, knowledge.

the gospel of numbers

Once those results are “certified,” they become gospel.  They are used to promote students, evaluate teachers, and determine how funding for schools is apportioned.  In addition, they can even determine the physical control of the school district.  In Ohio, a District that fails to meet the “standards” on a long-term basis can have their leadership removed, their governance taken from the community and given to the the state, and their teacher contracts voided.

The “figures aren’t lying.” It’s worse than that.  The figures tell us information that isn’t relevant to what schools should be doing.  Look, I was a track coach for forty years.  If I had a runner who practiced really hard, but was unable to improve on their competitive performance, I failed.  It didn’t matter if the practices were “successful;” in track it’s about the race.  I needed to change the workout plan; to find a way for that athlete to succeed in the one place that mattered, competition.

Schools are working incredibly hard at testing; they are producing great test takers, and encouraging great teachers of tests.  What they are failing to do is produce the workers my business friend needs.  We are “successful” in practice, but losing the race. 

changing the focus

It’s time to end the focus on standardized test, and give students the learning and cooperative skills they need in the “real world.”  It doesn’t mean the end of tests (though ending most standardized testing would be great), but it should mean ending US education’s focus on this irrelevant outcome.   Do that, and let great teachers do what they do best: leading, encouraging, problem solving, and finding ways for kids to succeed.  We should stop worrying about the “numbers” and look at the broader success of student achievement.  We need to give them what they really need to win their race.  Success on a test isn’t it.

In every political campaign (at least the good ones) there is a “book,” outlining the issues the candidate will face, and the arguments and positions the candidate takes.  It is so everyone on the campaign is literally on “the same page” when it comes to that issue. I’m not running for office, but over the next several weeks, I will be presenting a series of issues for my “briefing book.”

Education – part two-The Cost and the debt

Our society has become more complex.  There are fewer and fewer jobs like those of our fathers and grandfathers: jobs learned “on the job.” Once there were  good factory jobs, bolting things together or taping refrigerator doors shut before shipment. Unions made sure those jobs paid a living wage. Now those factories are gone, the unions disappearing, and a robot tapes the doors shut anyway.

It takes two more years

As the world’s complexity increases, the need for education increases as well.  It is clear today, that the thirteen years of free public education offered  (K-12) is not enough for meaningful employment.  Most jobs with living wages require post-high school training, and many more require advanced degrees.

Right now, we demand that our children, or their parents, pay for that advanced education. It’s a high cost. Even two years of technical college (Central Ohio Technical College) costs almost $5,000/year in tuition.  The local community college (Ohio State – Newark) is $10,000/year.

In our era where many are living paycheck-to-paycheck, there is little alternative but to borrow for advanced education.  Technical College: the student puts in two years and gains $10,000 in debt. Community College: students spend four years and have $40,000 of debt.  

We are saddling our young with this tremendous debt burden as they enter the workforce, preventing them from taking full advantage of mobility and the economy. They are stuck, “…another day older, and deeper in debt” (from Tennessee Ernie Ford’s song to the coal miner, Sixteen Tons.)  They live at home, they take whatever job they can, and they pay, and pay, and pay.  But they have little choice; the jobs available with a high school diploma seldom offer a living wage.

the cost

The United States is already spending over $91 Billion for the costs of student loans and grants each year.   To add a year of public education would cost around $100 Billion, less the $91 Billion that is already spent.  That means for $9 Billion, spread across the fifty states, we could provide an additional year of FREE public education. That’s $18 Billion for two years; enough to finish a technical degree to prepare for employment, or half of a four-year degree.

“FREE PUBLIC EDUCATION” is, of course, not free. It is paid for by the taxpayers, all of them, in order to “do the right thing” for our children, and our future. This is what society and government are supposed to do; instead of making those who need the education and are least able to pay for it bear the burden, often for decades. The banks gain profit, while society loses out.

This would not be a mandatory requirement, like K-12 education.  High School graduates could make other choices, including the military. In fact, there would be a tremendous growth benefit if graduated youth in the United States were offered a year or two of public service, allowing them to earn even more educational benefits. But the first two years of training should be made available, for free, to finalize their education.

the benefit

We are responsible for preparing our youth for the future.  It’s not “socialism,” it’s as American as the Northwest Ordinance of 1784, when public land was set aside for education.  The founding fathers recognized that only an educated people could maintain a democracy.  We later determined that our nation needed a better-educated workforce, first up to eighth grade, then through high school.  We made a national commitment towards math and sciences in the 1950’s to improve our military defense.

This modest proposal is simply a further extension of those ideals.  The infrastructure is already in place (though it may require expansion.)  The cost is minimal. The benefit: we improve our economy, we get a better-trained workforce, and we relieve the newest workers in our society of a crushing financial burden at the start of their work life.   And, it’s the right thing to do.

The Briefing Book – Education (Part One)

In every political campaign (at least the good ones) there is a “book,” outlining the issues the candidate will face, and the arguments and positions the candidate takes.  It is so everyone on the campaign is literally on “the same page” when it comes to that issue. I’m not running for office, but over the next several weeks, I will be presenting a series of issues for my “briefing book.”

Public education is a topic where I have some expertise.  I was a public school teacher for twenty-seven years, ranging from sixth to twelfth grades.  After that, I was the Dean of Students of a 1200 student high school for the last nine years of my career.  As as teacher I was the President of my local union, and I did a lot of curriculum and policy development. I also was on the forefront of our schools response to the “testing” phenomenon of the late 1980’s, an era that dramatically changed public schools.  I’ve seen a lot of public education.

I also have a Masters degree in the subject, as well as a “liberal arts” under-graduate education from Denison University here in Ohio.  With only a single semester hiatus, I spent my entire student and working life in the education system.

There are three areas of education that need to be “fixed:” public schools, curriculum and testing, and post-high school education and debt.  That’s a lot to talk about, so let’s start with the public school.  

Class Size

Like it or not, there is a strong correlation between smaller class sizes and better educational outcomes, or to put it in “English,” fewer kids in a class usually means those kids learn more.  It makes common sense, a good teacher can spend more time with each student, dealing with their individual learning issues, and kids do better.

There are two problems with this.  First, it is the most expensive solution in education; teacher salaries (and benefits) are 75 to 80% of the costs to a public school district.  More teachers cost more money.  But there is no substitute: no computer, no television, no packaged program from an educational corporation; can replace a good teacher with a reasonable number of students.

We all recognize this in college.  Basic classes are usually bigger, with lectures the primary educational tool used. More advanced classes are smaller, with each student directly accountable for learning and teaching, with greater direct interaction with the professor.  In more advanced classes we are expected to learn more, and are given the individual attention to do so.

It is just as true in public schools.  A teacher in a first grade classroom is responsible for the learning of twenty-four or more kids.  The success those kids have in first grade may well determine their educational success throughout their lives.  To give them the best shot at success, the solution is:  a great teacher with fewer kids.  

Great Teachers

Several times in this essay I have already used the phrase “good” or “great” teacher.  There needs to be recognition that teaching is not a “science” where a single solution can apply to all cases.  Teaching requires a combination of subject knowledge, technical (teaching) knowledge, empathy and dedication.  There is an “art” to teaching as well as a science.  Just as every student learns differently, each teacher needs to find a process that works both for the student and the teacher. The greatest learning tool for a teacher is to teach – all of the “education” classes in the world cannot teach what experience can.  Teacher training should be an apprenticeship; beginning under a “master” teacher, learning from them, and continuing until “journeyman” and “master” status are achieved.

But you get what you pay for.  The average pay for teachers is $58,353 per year (Money.)  This is the AVERAGE, including all of those teachers who have been in the profession for many years.  The average college graduate last year started their first year of employment at around $50,000, and improved from there (CNBC.)   The average starting salary for teachers is from $30,000 to $40,000 (MaGoosh.)  From a pure money standpoint, it’s difficult for teaching to compete with other professional fields for “the best.”

Of course the argument often heard is that teachers only work 38 weeks a year.  The reality is that teachers are required to work 38 to 40 hours a week at school, and still need to put in 10 to 20 more hours “homework.” This puts most teachers at around 2000 hours a year, the same as a “normal” 40-hour per week, 50-week per year job.  

May the force be with them

This all means that while teaching is a “calling,” the “call” doesn’t include even a competitive salary compared to non-teaching peers.  The “call” is strong in some (like the “force” to use a Star Wars analogy) but many great teachers simply can’t afford to go or stay in the classroom.  It’s America:  you get what you pay for.  A discount education, with poorly paid teachers and crowded classrooms, will get exactly what you’d expect; sub-par educational outcomes.

The new burden

In addition, public education is now burdened with providing many of the social services that were not a part of the 1960’s public schools.  From nutrition, breakfast to lunch to snacks; to health screenings, to emotional support and family counseling; public schools aren’t what they used to be.  The finite resources that schools receive are stretched even thinner, and the kids lose out.

Are there wastes in public education?  Sure, though I would argue that one of the biggest wastes is the dozen or so days lost to testing each year.  Are there administrations that are top heavy, bureaucratic and expensive?  Absolutely, and current administrative models concentrating power in the bureaucracy of a “central office” fail to serve their kids (or, in the “business” model of education, their “stakeholders.”) Instead, schools should solve the kids’ problems on site, with the expert staff (that’s the teachers) and hands-on administrators.  

Today’s reality

But the reality of public education is that it is underfunded, and evaluated on a “grading system” that has little to do with student learning or outcomes.  State legislatures have applied “business model” solutions to public education, despite that fact that education is not manufacturing “widgets” (but we can teach you what widgets are!!)  So we are told that schools are failing, given “grades” on “metrics” that have little bearing on real world outcomes.  

Those “grades” become the rationale for NOT supporting funding for schools, and put education into a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure.  Common sense would say to put our money where our needs are, and make students succeed.  The best way to make students succeed:  smaller classes with great teachers. It will cost more – and be worth every dime. That should be our public educational goal.

Trump’s Core Belief

Next week ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States. They will be removed as fast as they come in. – Tweet from President Donald Trump, 6/17/19

It is the core belief of those that support Donald Trump. He started from the very beginning, from the “glide” down the golden escalator in Trump Tower.  Some of the first words Donald Trump spoke were about “Mexico” sending immigrants:

“They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us (sic). They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” Trump’s announcement speech – 6/16/15 – Time

So it should be no surprise that in his 2020 campaign “re-boot,” he raises the specter of “illegal immigrants” once again. The fact that ICE is physically unable to round-up millions of undocumented immigrants isn’t important.  What is critical to the Trump Campaign, is that he can once again reach into the darkness and find the hate that powered him to the White House, regenerating that energy for 2020.

Trump generates fear.  Many Americans feel left behind by all of the social changes of the past fifty years.  America has changed racially, socially, sexually:  Trump has summed all of this fear up in the phrase “Make America Great Again.”  What it really means is to make America 1950’s again, the era where whites were dominate; the Leave it to Beaver world that didn’t really exist, especially for minority Americans.  

An axiom of propaganda is that there needs to be someone to blame. The Communist revolutionaries in Russia blamed the “Bolsheviks,” the middle class that benefited from the Czarist government.  Hitler blamed the Jews, for the loss of World War I, for the economic depression of the late 1920’s, for the “corruption” of German youth by academia.

From the moment he came down the escalator, Trump has used undocumented migrants as his group to blame.  He has called them Mexican rapists and murderers, even though most aren’t Mexicans.  It doesn’t matter, they are “brown skinned” and “look like” Mexicans.  Trump blames them for illegal drugs, even though his own Customs Department states that the vast majority of illegal drugs come through legal crossings (16 tons of cocaine seized on a ship in the port of Philadelphia this week CNN.) 

The President presents a simplistic solution to the problem; build a Wall.  It won’t solve the drug problem, and it won’t stop determined migrants.  But it will cost $30 to $40 Billion to build, it is a physical “symbol” of Trump’s hate, and it “sounds” like it might work.

Trump takes the very small minority of undocumented migrants who do belong to organized crime gangs like MS-13, and turns them into the threat he needs to scare his white suburban and rural base.  He feeds into the fear they feel, making them “stay small” and away from the urban areas where they might interact with “brown” people.  

And he blames Democrats: “They would strip Americans of their constitutional rights while flooding the country with illegal immigrants in the hopes it will expand their political base, and they’ll get votes someplace down the future. That’s what it’s about. And we are building the wall. We’re going to have over 400 miles of wall built by the end of next year.” (Trump rally speech – Orlando, 6/18/19 Factbase)

Trump has built camps, to hold the migrants he has ordered captured.  We use all sorts of euphemisms from “detention facilities” to “tent cities,” but they are what they are:  concentration camps.  (Note:  there is a difference between concentration camps, used by the British in South Africa during the Boer War, the US with Americans of Japanese descent in World War II, and Hitler’s Death Camps.)  Just because they aren’t starving and murdering folks, doesn’t make it ‘OK’. (Esquire)

And he allows American officials to take children away from their parents.  It’s happening still, and many of the children taken in the past have not been reunited with their parents.  The youngest was four months old (New York Times.)

It’s not about solving the problem at the border.  That solution is apparent:  deal with the crime and poverty in the “Northern Triangle” of Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua.  Folks are leaving there because they feel there is no choice; that it is worth the risk of all that can happen on the trip North.  Better that, than the certainty of poverty and violence that their homes offer.

But that answer doesn’t feed into Donald Trump’s political needs.  It doesn’t raise money, fill stadiums, or excite voters.  So he threatens millions of the undocumented, raising the vision of kids returning from school or daycare to empty homes, their parents incarcerated by ICE.  Millions won’t be “rounded up” but some will, to serve as an “example.” More outrages will be committed, all in the name of  “MAGA.”   And all to serve a single purpose:  win in 2020.

How Far Have We Come?

Sunday night, I watched a special on MSNBC called Rebellion – Stonewall.  It was a brief history of Gay Rights in the United States since the beginning of the gay rights movement in New York City in 1969.  It all seemed like ancient history, though it is all within my political lifetime.  Change in America has happened, and is continuing: historic change blindingly fast, and we are wrestling with the results today.

First, America has come so far, from punishing homosexuality as a crime and putting gay people in jail fifty years ago, we are reaching a time of legal equality.  From forcing LGBTQI folks to stay “in the closet” or risk being shunned by family and society, we live now at a time when they can “be themselves” in the open.  Fifty years ago, the whole “rainbow” of sexual orientations beyond heterosexuality was defined as “mental disorder” by psychiatrists in their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Disorders; today psychiatry accepts the differences as part of “normal.”

It’s not all over though.  

Pete Buttigieg, Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is a serious candidate for the Democratic nomination for President.  He is young at thirty-seven, brilliant, a veteran, and gay.  In 2008, Americans were asked if we were ready for an African-American President with Barack Obama.  Today, is America ready for a gay candidate for President?

Last week at the Gay Pride events in Columbus, an older man held up a sign saying “Dad Hugs.”  He spent the day hugging young LGBTQI folks whose parents have rejected them for their identifications.  

Thirty-six years ago the Reverend (sic) Jerry Falwell said: “AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals; it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.”

AIDS was raging through America’s gay men.  The Reagan administration, dependent on the Christian Fundamentalist votes that Falwell represented and controlled, did little to stop it.  From the beginning of the epidemic around 1980 until 2000, 448,060 died in America from AIDS.  

Eight years ago gays were allowed to openly serve in the US military.  

Four years ago gay marriage was allowed nationwide. It was just after, that Mike Huckabee, former Governor of Arkansas and candidate for President, stood beside the Rowan County Kentucky clerk who refused to issue a marriage license to a gay couple.

Some say it is about religion, but it is hard to see how anyone’s God could condemn two people finding joy in a relationship and dedicating their lives to each other.  As the Columbus Gay Pride parade went by in colorful jubilation, in the background an older man stood with a sign saying “Repent of your Sins.”  Their religion is one of judgment and condemnation, and like Reagan before him, Trump is dependent on their support.  Rainbow flags were banned by the Administration from US Embassy flagpoles last week.

The fight for LGBTQI equality is not over.  There are still legal battles, but more importantly, there are societal issues to resolve.  Gays are still discriminated against in housing, insurance, school, work and most of all, in their own homes.  Much of America has a long way to go towards racial equality, the same is true for the LGBTQI. 

A news host in New York last night constantly referred to Dayton as “…out in Ohio.”   “Out here in Ohio,” in “flyover country,” in the “rust belt” and the “middle:” Ohio is struggling with LGBTQI issues.  I bet they are in New York City too.  Our world, both there and here, has moved so fast that many feel left behind.  But even here, “out in Ohio,” society is catching up; growing more accepting, and learning to judge all folks, as Martin Luther King demanded, on the content of their character.

In 2004, if you asked most conservatives or liberals, they would have said that an African-American President was unlikely in the next twenty years.  Four years later, America changed.  Three years ago, Hillary Clinton, a woman, won the popular vote for President of the United States.  Sometimes we don’t know it’s time for change, until the change has already happened.  

The ignorance defense

On ABC’s Sunday Morning, Chris Christie, former New Jersey Governor and informal Trump advisor, made the claim one more time:  Donald Trump is ignorant of the laws regarding politics. Christie went on, “…he is a business man, and he does things that he would do in business.”  Christie then said that those actions shouldn’t occur in politics, but Trump didn’t, and doesn’t, know.

So, in Christie’s view, the fact that Donald Trump was an unethical businessman was acceptable, and that should excuse him from being an unethical politician.  

The Mueller Report

In the first volume of the Mueller Report, it was clear that the June 9^thmeeting at Trump Tower between Russians and Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort met all of the criteria for a conspiracy to commit election crimes except for, in Mueller’s opinion, the “mens rea;” the state of mind {Mueller Report, Volume 1, p.189-190.} Mueller wasn’t convinced he could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump Jr. or Kushner knew that what they were doing was against the law.  While he could certainly show that Manafort knew, he already had Manafort guilty on multiple more serious charges.

We all grew up with the phrase: “ignorance of the law is no excuse” (ignorantia legis neminem excusat in the original Latin.) It goes back in Western history to the Greek philosopher Aristotle, and has been a bedrock principle of Roman and English Common Law through the centuries.  What Special Counsel Mueller has taught us now, is that ignorance of the law is in fact not only an excuse, but can be so compelling that it inoculates a suspect from prosecution.

Several of the “legal experts,” even on MSNBC, have spoken of the “…complicated laws governing campaign conduct and finance,” suggesting that novices like the Trumps could easily run afoul of their arcane twists and turns.  However, this section of the Federal Code is pretty clear (52 US Code § 30121.)   As Ellen Weintraub, Chairman of the Federal Election Commission said:

“I would not have thought that I needed to say this…Let me make something 100 percent clear to the American public and anyone running for public office: It is illegal for any person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a U.S. election…”

ROOKIE EXCUSES

I was a low level member of the Jimmy Carter campaign back in 1976, a “field coordinator.”  It didn’t get any lower, the next step was a volunteer, though at $50 a week, I wasn’t far from that.  I was all of twenty years old, but I’m absolutely sure that if a Soviet agent had come to me with ANY kind of information, I would have figured out to get to the FBI.  It wouldn’t have been a complex decision requiring legal consultation.  If I had a question, I could have asked the Secret Service agents we worked with when the candidate came to town.  They were friendly and approachable (at least when Carter was in town, when President Ford arrived, not so much) and would answer any and all questions.

The Trumps not only had access to the Secret Service, but to a myriad of high priced lawyers (besides Michael Cohen) who would have given them clear advice.  Which raises the question:  were the Trumps “novices” who were unaware, or did they maintain a “willful ignorance” so they didn’t “have” to know?

WILLFUL IGNORANCE

Today, besides writing these essays, I am a teacher of “Pole Vaulting Safety.”  Talk about a small niche:  I teach middle and high school coaches how to coach the pole vault event safely.  They are required to have a “safety certificate” to work in Ohio.  If there was a pole vault accident, and the coach was not certified; they and their school would be in a difficult legal situation.  (Want more on Pole Vault Safety – click here.)

Not being certified is a “willful ignorance” of the rules governing coaching.  Being certified exposes those coaches to safe and unsafe coaching practices.  Hopefully, they go out and coach safely, and kids have fun, succeed and don’t get hurt.

If one chooses (and it is a choice) to run a national political campaign costing millions of dollars, it would be reasonable “due diligence” to have a familiarity with the laws.  It’s common sense, and while it can be argued that the Trump’s lack sense, this one seems too easy.  Like the “safety certificate” program, the Trumps would either have willfully chosen not to know the laws, or been so arrogant as to not care.

SIN NO MORE

The sins of the past will be settled in the Courts, Congressional Committees, and ultimately at the voting booth in 2020. But as far as the sins of the future are concerned, the President, his family and his campaign need to be on notice: the laws which seemed so beneath their concern in 2016 are still in force today.   Ignorantia legis neminem excusat.

PS – It seems that the President in his interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos said something to the effect that if the FBI “cabal” investigating him had leaked news of the investigation before the 2016 election, he would have had a hard time explaining it and might not have won. That, of course, is exactly the point: if there was really a plot to keep Trump from the Presidency, they could have easily succeeded by just such a leak. The fact that they didn’t demonstrates that there was no “FBI plot against him” like the fiction he and his supporters keep trumpeting.

Politics Begin

I started writing essays on “Trump World” in February of 2017. This is the 501’st, and the third in a series on how I became “political.” I’m sure it’s clear where I stand now, but I wanted to let you see the “development of a political mind.”  I hope you enjoy it.

The election of Nixon in 1968 started a whole new world of politics for me.  Nixon promised to end the war in Vietnam with his “secret plan.” It turned out the secret plan was to stay in the war, expand it to include Cambodia and Laos, and tell America that his “silent majority” was all the support he needed (much like Trump’s base today.)

There were protests against the war, and I went with my sister to downtown Dayton to join in.  I was good until the police showed up, then it was time for “flight, not fight.”  Others didn’t flee violence in protest, at Kent State and Jackson State.  Neil Young’s song Ohio wasn’t played on our radio, we were told that the stations didn’t dare buck Governor James Rhoades.  Still, four students were dead in Ohio.

Dad got promoted to President of Syndication of Multimedia Broadcasting, selling the Phil Donahue Show, Sally Jesse Raphael, After School Specials, and Jerry Springer all over the country. We moved back to Cincinnati in 1970, living in the near suburb of Wyoming, Ohio.

One of my favorite television shows at the time was called Twelve O’Clock High.  It was a series about US bombers crews stationed in England during World War II, based on the Gregory Peck movie.  Flying bomber missions over Europe was one of the most dangerous duties of the War, if the Nazi anti-aircraft or fighters didn’t get you on the first mission, they’d get another chance.  Crews flew twenty-five missions or more before they were allowed a reprieve. 

So in 1972, I was surprised that the Democratic candidate for President, George McGovern, was portrayed by Republicans as a “softie.”  McGovern, a Senator from South Dakota, flew 35 missions over Europe in World War II. He picked up the “mantle” of Robert Kennedy after the assassination in 1968, and earned the nomination over Senator Ed Muskie and former Vice President Hubert Humphrey.  

It was difficult to contrast his obvious personal courage with the Nixon campaign generated image of a “softie:” soft on crime, soft on Vietnam, soft on foreign policy.  And, more fodder for the Nixon campaign, McGovern was not only an anti-war Democrat, but he was an “academic elite,” with a PhD in history from Northwestern and a former professor. Vice President Agnew went after him.

Unlike the 1968 Democratic convention, 1972 was calm.  Unfortunately, it took almost no time at all to screw things up after the Convention; the Vice Presidential nominee, Senator Tom Eagleton of Missouri, turned out to have undergone electro-shock treatments for depression.  Eagleton resigned, and the job was offered to almost everyone in the party.  Finally Sargent Shriver, former director of the Peace Corp and a Kennedy in-law, took the position.

Nixon won overwhelmingly, even McGovern’s South Dakota voted against their own Senator.  Only Massachusetts went for McGovern, (leading to the bumper sticker, “Don’t Blame Me, I’m from Massachusetts”.)  Nixon was back, able to continue the War, with no end in sight.

Then details of a minor incident at the Democratic Headquarters in Washington, located in the Watergate Office complex, emerged.  Reporters from the Washington Post, New York Times, and other newspapers and media, traced who controlled the “plumbers,” the nickname for the Watergate burglars.

In 1973 the Senate convened the Special Committee on Watergate.  Senator Sam Ervin, Democrat of North Carolina chaired, but Republican Senators like Howard Baker and Fred Thompson, both from Tennessee, were also committed to finding the truth. They methodically investigated what was going on in the Nixon Campaign, starting with the burglars, and moving up the chain into the campaign and the administration.  

I was addicted to Watergate. I watched White House Counsel John Dean testify that he told Nixon; “there is a cancer on the Presidency,” and was shocked when Alexander Butterfield told that Nixon taped all conversations in the Oval Office. I was proud of Attorney General Eliot Richardson for resigning rather than fire the Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, and derided Solictor General Robert Bork for doing Nixon’s dirty work.

Much like today, it seemed apparent that the President was “guilty” early in the process.  But I learned there was a difference between what seemed obvious, that Nixon planned and paid for a cover-up and used the FBI and CIA to help hide it; and what was “provable.”  By the end of 1973, it seemed like somehow, despite the truth, Nixon would weather the storm and stay in the Presidency.

1974 was my senior year in high school.  My government teacher, Mr. Wagner, was a diehard Nixon fan.  My “mentor,” Eve Bolton, was a first year teacher from Wooster College who campaigned for Ed Muskie in 1972. She was inspirational, we organized campaigns for local Democrats and talked about running ourselves.  I got in trouble in Mr. Wagner’s class for telling a joke about Nixon, earning in-school suspension. At Wyoming High School that meant being restricted to the “teacher office area” for the day.  Ms. Bolton brought me lunch.

We campaigned in “real” politics after school, and we “won” for Wyoming in academic competitions. Our model UN team “succeeded” by representing Somalia, parlaying the two things Somalia had for sale, sand and Naval bases, into UN power.  Our “Social Studies Team” won the state testing competition.  Eve got us all involved; when we weren’t talking about our next strategy, we were talking about Watergate.

Forty-five years later the slow drip of the Russia investigation is very much like the slow maturing of the Watergate crisis.  History isn’t repeating, but it is rhyming; with hearings, Special Counsel reports, and breaking news in the media.  The summer of 1974 meant the release of the tapes, iron-clad evidence of Nixon’s direct involvement in crime, and in August, he resigned.  I remember watching on TV in the basement recreation room.  I knew it was serious, but I still toasted the end of Richard Nixon with champagne.

I hope someday to see the end of Donald Trump. It took over two years for Watergate, and that was with a Democratic House and Senate.  The clock for Trump didn’t really start ticking until the House became Democratic, so there is still a long way to go.  Ultimately, I expect that the people will be the jury rather than the Senate; 2020 will decide his fate.  “Raise a glass.”

The Joke (probably shouldn’t have done it on Mr. Wagner’s chalkboard):

With Three Lines – make this  | | I  /  O | | into a crooked man with a crooked house and a crooked staff.

     | | I  /  O | |

1.  N I  /  O | |

2.  N I X O | |

3.  N I X O N

So Long Sarah!

Sarah Huckabee Sanders is leaving the White House.  She didn’t have the opportunity to let us all know herself, even though she was the Press Secretary to the President.  Of course it’s the Trump Administration, and the announcement was made through the primary form of White House communication, a tweet from the President.  

“After 3 1/2 years, our wonderful Sarah Huckabee Sanders will be leaving the White House at the end of the month and going home to the Great State of Arkansas. She is a very special person with extraordinary talents, who has done an incredible job! I hope she decides to run for Governor of Arkansas — she would be fantastic. Sarah, thank you for a job well done!”

You have to wonder if she knew she was leaving.  Many, many White House appointees found out for the first time they were leaving on Twitter.  Ask former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who found out on the commode, or Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, who read it on Twitter as the motorcade left him behind. All probably had it better than Jim Comey, he read about being fired looking at a TV in the back of the room, while delivering a speech.

She became the “voice” of the President, after the departure of Spicer (“the biggest inauguration ever”) and the unceremonious removal of Scaramucci (the “Mooch”.)  She evolved into a bitter contestant in the “message” war of the press room, waging battle against CNN’s Jim Acosta and Playboy’s Brian Karum, as well as the other reporters asking tough questions.  At the beginning it felt like she knew that she was “telling tales,” but towards the end of her White House press briefings, the message was hard; ignoring the substance of almost every question asked, and stuck to the script.

It was no surprise that the White House briefings ended.  The President’s message was so difficult to project, that only Trump himself could do it.  So White House communication is now in the “scrums” at the “photo ops,” and on the lawn walking to the helicopter.  Trump himself is the messenger, and poor Sarah seemed redundant, echoing whatever it is he happened to say that morning.

While Sean Spicer did a press conference from the bushes, Sarah got used to meetings on the White House walk. The Press Room literally has dust on the chairs and podium; it might be better to make it back into the swimming pool it was.

Sarah spent the past two years telling us there was no collusion, no cooperation between the Russians and the Trump campaign.  Wednesday night the President all but admitted to “collusion,” and then used the old high school office excuse:  everyone does it.  It’s not a surprise that Sarah resigned today; tough to show your face in public when the boss just showed up your two years of lies.  She can’t be blamed for going back to Arkansas. 

It’s home, and there is fertile political ground for a potential candidate, especially one with a popular former Governor as a father.  But it’s difficult to see how Sarah’s service in the Trump campaign and administration will be of use in preparing her for governing.  They didn’t seem to do a very good job of that.

However, Trump support is currently vital, and she’s got it.  He won the state by 60% in 2016, and there doesn’t seem to be many cracks in his support there yet.  Future events will show whether Trump maintains his deadlock on the base Republican electorate.

Who’s next in the Press Secretary role?  Traditionally, a “flak jacket” hangs in the White House Press Secretary office, filled with the messages of predecessors giving advice on how to get the job done. But with the departure of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the last traditional Press Secretary is gone, at least for this administration. 

Whoever has the job next will be a lot more like that guy who worked at the end of the circus parade, the one with the shovel, picking up the leavings of the elephants.  They will have the role of cleaning up Trump’s mess, a mess that seems to be growing bigger and deeper.  They don’t need a jacket; they need a bucket, and maybe some big rubber boots.

Norway, If You’re Listening…

“If somebody called from a country, Norway, [and said] ‘we have information on your opponent’ — oh, I think I’d want to hear it.” – President Donald Trump, Wednesday, 6/12/19

“We don’t want to come to the United States, we have nothing to say to Donald Trump, and we wouldn’t help him anyway.  We won’t call.  Please stop saying ‘Norway.’” – Norwegian Foreign Secretary – Thursday, 6/13/19

Ok, I made the second one up.  Norway, to my knowledge, has not responded to President Trump’s comment yesterday.  But they should, they’ve got to be tired of being his “example.”

The President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, admitted yesterday that if a foreign power gave his campaign intelligence about a political opponent, Trump would listen to that intelligence, and would not notify the US counter-intelligence agency, the FBI.  This is despite the fact that when that event actually happened in 2016, and Russian operatives offering “dirt” on Hillary Clinton, the Trump campaign did then and continues now to lie about it.

Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, holding the highest office in the nation, is willing to commit criminal acts to remain President.  He said so himself.  Taking anything of value from a foreign source, including “dirt” on an opponent, “oppo research,” is a violation of Federal campaign laws, at the least.  It might be more, including espionage.  

Note:  for those, including media commentators, who claim that this might be “treason,” that is overreaching.  Treason in the “common” sense may feel right, but the Constitutional definition of treason is: 

“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.” 

We are not at war, so any of the nations that might give the President campaign intelligence aren’t technical enemies; therefore charges couldn’t include treason.  Even the Rosenbergs, who were convicted and executed for stealing the atom bomb plans and giving them to the Soviet Union, were charged with espionage, not treason.

There is a Saturday Night Live sketch of the Lester Holt (played by Michael Che) interviewing the President, when Trump admitted that he fired FBI Director Comey because of “Rush-y-a.”  In the sketch, Holt turns to the camera and says, “…did I get him, is it over.”  The answer was; “…no, nothing matters.”

George Stephanopoulos, the ABC interviewer, had the same look on his face when Trump made his statement Wednesday.  So far, the answer is still the same; nothing matters.

Norway is an unlikely source of information on American political campaigns.  But there are four international actors who actively seek “opposition” information from US computers, trying to find some way to disrupt American politics.  Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran all are interested in weakening the American government and democracy, and they all have shown the capability of hacking and disrupting American networks.  

And, they all have reason to “help” the President, especially as that help would include “benefits.”  Russia has benefited from their aid in the 2016 campaign, the President has consistently denied his own intelligence findings rather than contradict Putin’s assertions.  China, the President’s buddy in North Korea, and even the Iranians could all use that help.

The 2020 Trump campaign has already threatened to get “dirt” on Joe Biden’s son from Ukraine, with Rudy Giuliani planning on making the trip.  The Russian-supported opposition in Ukraine certainly would be willing to help, whether the actual “dirt” is true or not.

The issue isn’t the information, it’s the influence over the President that using the information creates. The people of the United States already question the influence of Russia; how many other nations will “get a piece” of Trump for a second term.

And, if this is the new “norm,” then every candidate will get in on the fun.  

The President has already demonstrated that he is willing to attack and even fire anyone in the executive branch that has the courage to investigate his campaign or Presidency. The Courts, dependent on prosecutors to bring cases, can do little if the prosecution can’t do their job. There is only one branch that has the authority to “check” this seemingly unlimited Presidential power: the Congress.

Yesterday changed the political calculations.  Before, using the impeachment power of the House of Representatives seemed to be futile, the Senate would never convict, and the President would claim “victory and exoneration” after a Senate vote.  But now, the President, in the open, claimed he would commit a crime that his campaign already committed in 2016.  For the House to ignore that open confession is impossible.

It’s time for the hearings to start.  The nation should have the opportunity to hear witnesses, see exhibits, and determine for themselves what the standards should be for holding the office of President. Whether those proceedings result in a bill of impeachment reaching the floor of the House is really irrelevant. “We the People” have the right to see the facts, and if nothing else, make our own judgment at the polls in 2020.

Since the Senate Republicans don’t have the courage to withstand Presidential tweets, the voters of America can be the jury.  I have faith in their common sense, and common decency.  They will make the right decision.  So the House must give them the information to decide.  Speaker Pelosi:  let impeachment proceedings begin.

Then It Got Real – Part 2

“Trump World” is approaching 500 Essays since February of 2017. I’m sure it’s clear where I stand now, but I wanted to let you see the “development of a political mind.” Here’s Part Two.

I was nine in 1965 when we moved from Cincinnati to Dayton, Ohio. Dad was the new General Manager of WLW-D TV (now WDTN) Channel 2.  It was one of the two stations in Dayton, WHIO Channel 7 was the other.  My school buddy Marc’s Dad was the manager there, so we compared notes.  One of the advantages of being the “manager’s kid” was we got us into exciting things, like when President Lyndon Johnson came and spoke at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds.  It was 1966, and  Vietnam was just becoming an issue.  

Our seats in the stands were pretty good, but Johnson was still a far away figure with a Southern accent.  I was shocked to see young protestors in black turtleneck shirts from Antioch College in nearby Yellow Springs, standing below the podium and chanting against the War as he spoke.  They were quite “tame” but today’s standards, but at the time I was amazed that someone would dare to interrupt the President.  

My sisters and I were exposed to a lot of politics in those years.  Dad started a news/talk show at the station, with Phil Donahue as the host. Phil brought the eras most controversial people to Dayton, and often they ended up at our house the night before the show.  Most memorably was Tommy Smothers of the Smothers Brothers comedy duo.  I was thirteen, on the last year of being the “house bartender” (Dad must have thought I would start sampling the stuff as I got older) and Tommy came in late one night before the Donahue show. Mom woke me up, and said to get the bar ready.

MY biggest impression of Tommy, was that he was an older guy who told dirty jokes to kids.  The most memorable part of the evening was has girlfriend; she wore a dress that was slashed to her navel.  Dad’s sales manager, Chuck McFadden and I marveled at how the sides managed to stay up covering, well, most of what needed to be covered.  Sticky pads I guessed.  

Tommy and his brother Dick were soon cancelled from their successful TV show on CBS.  They had great ratings, but the network thought they were too controversial.  Their casual comedy songs were often critical of the War, and their guests invariably had an undercurrent of anti-war conversation.

Another Kennedy, Senator Robert Kennedy, entered the Presidential race.  He wasn’t the first candidate opposed to the Vietnam War; but he was my candidate. He favored Civil Rights and Martin Luther King, Workers Rights and Cesar Chavez, and wanted to make the United States a fairer and better place. And he was Bobby Kennedy, inheritor of the mantle of his brother’s leadership.

That spring, my radio alarm clock was set for 7 am to get me up for school.  The bus came at 7:45 a couple blocks away, but if I cut through the neighbor’s yard and jumped over the wall, it only took a minute.  I always woke up to the latest news headlines.  

On April 5th, the alarm clock clicked, and the announcer read that Martin Luther King had been assassinated in Memphis the evening before.  Riots broke out in Dayton; we watched buildings burn on Dad’s station.  Mayor Hall “read the riot act” and the National Guard moved in to protect the streets.

Two months later, the alarm clicked again, and I found that my hero, Bobby Kennedy, running for President and against the Vietnam War, was dead.  He was shot and killed by an assassin after winning the California primary; his candidacy gained momentum and might well have won the convention.  But he was gone; a long funeral train procession, a heartfelt speech by Ted Kennedy, a final burial next to his brother in Arlington.  His, and for a while my, dream of changing the world was ended. Bobby said; “…some men see things as they are and ask why, I see things that never were and ask, why not.”  I was asking why.

But my ultimate political “moment” of that year started out with a mistake.   My bike had a flat tire, and Dad helped me fix it.  One of us (I blamed him) didn’t manage to tighten the front fork bolts, and when I hit a bump in the neighbor’s driveway, the front wheel flew off.  I flipped over the handlebars, and when I finally landed, my right wrist had an odd bump. I quickly diagnosed it as a broken arm.

That wrecked my chance to be a “swim star” in the next day’s championships, and the doctor ordered me to lay low with my cast elevated for the next week.

It was August of 1968, and as I sat on the couch in the family room with my cast perched on a green beer box I painted for summer camp, I watched in “living color” the Democratic convention in Chicago.  It was the riot convention:  the party leaders, “Johnson Democrats” supported the war and Vice President Hubert Humphrey.  The anti-war Democrats, led by Gene McCarthy and George McGovern as a replacement for Bobby, protested on the floor of the convention.  Students marched in the streets.  Mayor Dick Daley of Chicago was firmly in the Johnson camp, and wasn’t going to let protests mar his convention.  He sent the police to clear the streets.

Protestors were tear gassed and beaten.  Reporters were chased into their hotels, and pummeled with nightsticks in the hall.  It was all on TV.  I listened to the politicians on the stage say that the violence was necessary for “law and order,” and I heard the opposition rail against the unprovoked attacks. “The whole world is watching” the protestors chanted, and later, “the whole world f**king” as well. 

That experience put me firmly in the anti-war camp.  Despite the fact that I was a Democrat and we got to meet Humphrey, the Democratic nominee, at the Dayton airport, I was never a big fan.  It wasn’t until years later in college, that I had the chance to study the liberalism that Humphrey espoused, and changed my mind about him.  In 1968 he was in an impossible position though, the Vice President, unable to “buck” his President Johnson’s war, and prevented from reaching out to the anti-war vote.  

The election was close enough it took until Wednesday to decide who won.  They announced Nixon’s victory over the PA at Van Buren Junior High School in Kettering, Ohio.  The school burst out in cheers and applause, and I put my head down on the desk.  How could we live with four years of Richard Nixon?

“Trump World” is approaching 500 Essays since February of 2017. I’m sure it’s clear where I stand now, but I wanted to let you see the “development of a political mind.” Here’s Part One, I hope you enjoy.

A Personal Kennedy Story

I became aware of politics when I was really, really young. Perhaps the earliest thing I remember is about political campaigns.  It had to be when I was three, the summer of 1960.  We were in Canada for our annual summer vacation. Politics must have been in the air, with the US Presidential election coming up in November. I’m not sure how it started, I’m sure I said something political.  I remember one of my parent’s friends, Jerry Ransohoff, singing:   “…vote, vote, vote, for Martin Dahlman, throw old ‘Ikey’ down the sink…”referring to then President, Dwight Eisenhower. They were ready to run me for President.  There was more, but I can’t remember the rest of the song.

In 1960 the youthful Senator from Massachusetts John Kennedy was the Democrat running for President, against the Republican Vice President, Richard Nixon.  My Mom, a citizen of the United Kingdom and unable to vote in US elections, had a personal connection to the Kennedy’s.  One of her schoolmates in Queen’s College in London was Kennedy’s sister, Kathleen.

Kathleen’s story is another tragic part of the Kennedy family saga. Her father, Joseph Kennedy, was the US ambassador to the United Kingdom in the years before World War II, and brought his family with him.  Kathleen went to British school, Queens College, and ultimately married William Cavendish, the Marquess of Hartington in 1944.  Her oldest brother Joe, stationed in England with the US Army Air Corps, was the only family member to attend the wedding.  

Joe was killed in combat three months later.  Cavendish himself was shot and killed by a German sniper in Belgium a month after that. Kathleen remained in England after the war, and was big on the London social scene.  She fell in love with the 8^thEarl Fitzwilliam, and was with him on a small airplane when they flew into a storm going to vacation on the French Riviera.  Both were killed in 1948.

So it was no surprise that Mom was a huge Kennedy supporter.  At four, I wasn’t real sure what everything was about, but I was proud to wear a Kennedy button on my shirt.  One of my father’s best friends before World War II was Buddy Shriver, son of Dr. Howard Shriver and his wife, Leah.  Buddy served in the Navy during the war, and contracted tuberculosis somewhere in his duties.  The disease ultimately killed him after the war, but Mom and Dad stayed close to the Shriver’s, and they were “Aunt Leah and Uncle Howard” to us kids.

Howard Shriver was one of the Cincinnati’s founding doctors in Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and not surprisingly, the Shriver’s were very Republican.  When I showed up at the doorstep (they had an apartment in the Vernon Manor Hotel in Cincinnati) with a Kennedy button on, it definitely was a problem. I wasn’t allowed in the door, and sat in the hall outside with my button on.  Eventually, Aunt Leah came out to get me, bringing a small iron elephant as a gift.  I didn’t know the elephant’s significance then, but I must have liked it.  I still have the elephant; it now represents the battle for my young political mind.  There was a wooden donkey too from that era, but I’m not sure where that came from.

My next political memory was one that my entire generation shares; the assassination of President Kennedy. I was in second grade at Clifton School in Cincinnati.  Mrs. Meyer, our teacher, wouldn’t tell us what happened when we were released from school early on November 22^nd, but we knew it was bad.  We heard it was in Texas, and as second graders, we talked about monsters smashing towns.  

As I walked home, a third grader came up to me and said the President was shot.  I knew that couldn’t be true, I was a Kennedy supporter, and we argued.  After heated discussion, he pushed me, and I punched him in the nose.  It wasn’t until I got home, and Mom opened the front door with tears in her eyes and a shocked look in her face, that I knew it was real.

We spent the next few days at home, watching the small black and white TV in my room (it took several minutes to “warm-up” once you turned it on.)  I remember the funeral march, the caisson carrying the flag draped coffin, young John-John saluting as it went by.  I vaguely remember the shock of the purported assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, being shot and killed in the Dallas police garage, but I don’t remember actually seeing it.  

We must have gone to Washington for a trip fairly soon after.  I remember seeing Kennedy’s grave, the eternal flame lit, and the hats of the military units surrounding the gravesite.   It was temporary, not the “National Monument” of the Kennedy grave today.  There was still new upturned dirt, freshly dug from the ground, and in our minds.  Another chapter ended in the tragic Kennedy tale.

Zuckerberg:  We Hate/Love/Pay You

Mark Zuckerberg changed our world.  His prodigy-like brilliance; developing the basic structure of social media while still in college, has altered our lives.  Before Facebook, there were other internet interactions like My Space, but Zuckerberg’s algorithms changed everything.  Today, 2.1 billion, almost a third of the world, use Facebook or one of their “apps,” every, single, day. Facebook has absorbed seventy-five different companies, including Instagram and Whats App.

Lots of folks claim they have changed the world – from the inventor of “my pillow” to Walt Disney.  But no one has a stronger claim than Zuckerberg:  his is an American invention that the entire world uses.  Facebook has helped organize revolutions, found lost family members (and dogs, millions of dogs) and raised money for great causes.  

Emerson said, “build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.”  I’m sure that Emerson meant that people would “beat a path;” he probably didn’t mean the mice.

This is the dilemma of Facebook.  It is a primary means of communication for many, and, it is how many of you read my essays.  But it is a mousetrap as well.  We are the mice, toying with Facebook, trying to get our cheese without getting caught.  But we all get caught, Facebook takes us: our profiles, our choices, our information; and turns it into money, money for Zuckerberg.

I am a capitalist.  I believe that Zuckerberg has earned the right to his wealth; his “mousetrap” was the best.  But like any trapper, he bears some responsibility for those caught in his snare.  A mousetrap snaps:  a mouse gets caught by the leg.  The “setter” of the trap has three choices:  free the mouse, kill the mouse, or allow the mouse to suffer.  Zuckerberg has let us suffer so far.

His “Facebook” has lured almost a third of the world into the trap.  Like the mice, we wanted the cheese, but didn’t know about the “snap.”  Now, we are all ensnared, giving up more than we get. And Zuckerberg has learned how to sell what we give, and manipulate what we see.  

Others have too, some as inventive as the prodigy himself, and Facebook has been “turned.”  It is now a mousetrap beating it’s own path.  Russian intelligence manipulation of Facebook wasn’t the first, and probably isn’t the most effective.  Ideological forces from all sides have found a voice and an audience on the platform. 

If they were just stating their views, posting manifestos and statements, then we “mice” could discriminate and determine truth from falsity, and love from hate.  But if that were true, then Facebook would look like my “blog.”  Instead, using the same powers that sold us toothpaste, high-powered automobiles and the Chia Plant, good and bad actors on Facebook are manipulating our “universe of knowledge.”  We no longer have a “truth.”  Each side gets to create its own “truth,” and puts it on Facebook as fact.  

We can no longer dialogue with those opposed to us, because we don’t begin with a common basis in fact.  Mr. Zuckerberg, that is your fault.  You built the trap, just because you lost control of it, doesn’t mean you dodge responsibility for it.

It is time to use that remarkable mind to re-think “the platform,” even if in re-thinking you might acquire less profit.  Facebook tells us lies; about history, about people, about our acquaintances, and about our leaders.  While Mark Zuckerberg takes no responsibility for those falsehoods, claiming that he is only “providing a microphone in the public square;” the fact that he is that he has given anyone a chance to use that “microphone,” and it is his, one that communicates to the entire world. It all creates a “duty of care.”

He has a “duty of care” to the world, just as the “setter” of the mousetrap owes some duty of care to the mouse.  He must accept that his “platform” is now a “news” medium, and must take a greater responsibility for its content.  I am confident that there are technical ways of doing so; he built one mousetrap, he can improve on it.  

He already is trying; but right now he is depending on the “mice” to police the trap for him.  Last week a “Facebook acquaintance” broke up with his girlfriend, and posted the most hateful and libelous statements, about her life, and her profession, and her morality.  I “reported” it to Facebook, and within the hour it was gone.  Score one for the mice!

But that doesn’t resolve the problem of ascertaining the “truth.”  The powers at Facebook are still determined to avoid those decisions, as it would require them to “offend” someone, and maybe lose their information, the saleable portion of their contact with the platform.  But that’s the literal price they may need to pay. 

Mr. Zuckerberg will cry out, “If we allow that in the US, then the must allow it in China, and Russia, and the other authoritarian nations of the world.  By restricting ‘information’ we will be giving license to censorship everywhere.”  It’s a good argument, but it’s too late.  The authoritarians of the world have already figured out how to restrict, control, and shutdown social media, Facebook included.  Last week was the thirtieth anniversary of the Chinese government’s massacre of protestors on TiananmenSquare.  But there was no mention of it on social media in China, in fact, the term was banned from Chinese internet.  So, if Zuckerberg won’t do it here; if he won’t be “police” as well as “trapper,” then it will be up to the Government to step in and show him the way.  

It isn’t what government’s best at, but it’s definitely better than no controls at all.  The European Union has already started.  Mr. Zuckerberg, your chance is now, or Congress, clueless octogenarians and all, will do it for you.  It’s your trap, fix it.

75 Years Later

They met in the July hot sun. It was dusty, but the campgrounds were better than before; there was clean water, and plenty of food. It was 1938, and the remaining veterans of the battle at Gettysburg, both Blue and Gray, gathered one more time. It was seventy-five years later, and time to say goodbye. Of the 160,000 Americans who had fought there, only 1,845 remained.

President Franklin Roosevelt spoke, dedicating a new monument on the battlefield, right at the place where Confederate General Rodes deployed artillery when he arrived from the North on the afternoon of July 1^st. Roosevelt’s speech, praised the courage of both sides, and congratulated the old men who were camping together, North and South. The Peace Monument was dedicated, overlooking the entire field, recognizing the hope for peace with an eternal light.

The old veterans spent three days there, just as they had seventy-five years before.  Those in Gray reenacted that last attack, Pickett’s Charge into the Union lines on Cemetery Ridge.  Old, faint, echoes of the famed Rebel Yell came from the fields.  But this time, as they climbed the low hill up to the Ridge, instead of blasts of rifle and cannon fire, old veterans in Blue came out to shake their hands, and offer an arm to the top.  It was the end of the last reunion, the last living memories of the blood and carnage of the worst battle fought on American soil.

Three years later, America was in a whole new war, one that had battles almost as brutal. As the last Civil War veterans passed on, an entire new generation of battle hardened Americans was created. This time it wasn’t the hills of Pennsylvania, but a world scene; from the beaches and jungles of the Pacific, to the sands of North Africa, and the mountains of Italy.

And 75 years now again, those veterans returned to the most famous battle of World War II; the beaches of Normandy, scene of the D-Day invasion.  The Allies, led by American forces, landed on the beach and parachuted behind the enemy lines, 156,000 strong, almost the identical number to that of both sides at Gettysburg.  Yesterday the few remaining old veterans, most in their nineties, came to walk that beach, and view the cliffs, and remember the struggle, one more time.

There were speeches from world leaders, marveling at their sacrifice,  even the German Chancellor, Angela Merckel, was invited to participate. And while there were no German hands to offer an arm up the slopes, these veterans returned not out of hate, but out of respect. Respect for the comrades they lost on the beaches; and respect for the innocence so many of them, only eighteen or nineteen years old, lost on those first days in June of 1944. 

It’s been 75 years since the D-Day invasion, the beginning of the final chapter of war against nationalism and hatred.  It would be another eleven months until the war was over, but once the Allies gained that foothold on the beach, the result was inevitable.

As those old veterans, ones like my parents, fade off into memory, it is concerning that what they fought for fades away as well.  We now live in a time where nationalism, hatred and bigotry are available in our pockets.  We need only pull out our phones or computers to be exposed to the multiple new versions of what those old veterans had hoped to eradicate on earth, seventy-five years ago. 

We need to remember the lessons of Gettysburg, and D-Day, and all of the other bloody battles we fought for our nation.  As we gather our daily dose of hatred and lies, we need to turn away, and nurture the flame of peace.  The Civil War was fought to make a divided nation, one; World War II was fought to make a world divided a safer place for all.  

But we are in a world today where division is rife.   And it’s not only the President, he is but a result of the success of division. It’s not only the Russians, our enemies with a will to make us hate.  It is our choice.  We have abandoned civility, respect, and acceptance for a philosophy that states “I am right, that makes you wrong.”  It needs to change.

Before the Civil War, Abolitionist John Brown led a “raid” with the hope of starting a slave revolt. Some of his men were killed, and Brown himself was caught, tried, and sentenced to death. Before his execution, he wrote a final statement. In part he said: “I am now certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.”  We too should heed his warning.

The eternal light on the Peace Monument didn’t go out during World War II.  It’s still lit today, a beacon on the hill Northwest of Gettysburg, just past the railroad cut on the edge of the woods.  But our constant access to the flames of lies and hate; Republican and Democrat, black and white, men, women and children: that hate threatens to make the results of sacrifice fade.  If that happens, as it did three years after they met at Gettysburg, we will be doomed once again to offer up blood to put out the all those consuming flames. 

D-Day – Seventy-Five Years Ago

Mom was born in London, Phyllis Mary Teresa O’Connor. As the baby of her family she was nicknamed “Babs,” a name she used her entire life.  She was British, and educated in England and later in Belgium.  She married Donald Lee Dahlman of Cincinnati, an American soldier who was part of the vast US Army preparing to invade Europe.  They were joined on March 27^th, 1944, in a civil ceremony in England. 

He was a finance officer, making sure the troops were paid.  Mom supposedly worked in the Old Age Pensions Office in London, but was actually a part of the SOE, the Special Operations Executive.  They were an elite unit who carried on the fight against the Germans in Occupied Europe, slipping into France on small aircraft to plot espionage attacks and communicate with the Resistance.

They were supposed to be married in June, but moved their wedding date up because they received orders to report to their units. It was clear that the invasion of Europe, D-Day, was coming.    Babs’s mother got all of her friends to pitch in part of their sugar rations for the cake, and her brother Leslie contributed champagne he had managed to get off the beach at Dunkirk during the evacuation.  

Don’s cousin and friend from Cincinnati, Buddy Levine, served as best man, and the two were married. It was a civil ceremony because Babs was Roman Catholic and Don was Jewish. The Church wouldn’t accept their union unless Don promised to raise any children as Catholic, and he wouldn’t. In the end, the British end of the family had less trouble with the religious differences than those back in Cincinnati.  

As part of her secret life, Babs spent time in the “War Rooms” in London.   Those were the secret underground headquarters of Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his generals.  SOE was a small group, developed and used by those top leaders to carry out their particular missions.  She became acquainted with some of the commanding Generals; the telegram congratulating them on the wedding from Omar Bradley still remains in their scrapbook. She adored Bradley, but didn’t have much good to say about Eisenhower, who disparaged her “uniform.” The SOE was improvisational in much of what they did, both in Europe, and in their uniform choices.  Babs didn’t appreciate criticism from a “Yank General.”

Like most British citizen, Babs adored Field Marshal Montgomery, “Monty.”  He was their “winner;” the man who drove the Nazis out of North Africa and led the successful invasion of Sicily.  She had a sketch of Monty; a small color drawing done by a friend during a planning meeting.  It was on the wall of their home for sixty-six years, and it’s hanging in my family room today.

After the wedding there was little time for “honeymooning,” just a couple days of hiking in the countryside.  Then Don reported to Southampton, the debarkation point for much of the Army heading to Normandy.  He would say he hit the beach “…with the third wave of WACs (the Women’s Army Corp).” He spent the next several months in France, making sure the GI’s got their pay checks, and trying to deal with the complications of French, Nazi, and Occupation currency.  

Babs left their wedding to report to headquarters, and was soon flying out of RAF Base at Tempsford, on a small single engine plane called a “Lysander.”  The plane could land on a short farm field, only 600 yards, and was designed to fly low and close to avoid enemy radar.  Agents were dropped off in the night, often met by French Resistance operatives who put flashlights out to outline the “landing strip.”

She was dropped into Normandy, where she helped prepare Resistance plans for D-Day.  Phone lines were cut, rail lines disrupted; the Resistance did everything they could to confuse and delay German response to the invasion. She was in town just days before the Allied paratroopers arrived in the night.  A Resistance cell she was working with was captured and killed.  She escaped.

The D-Day invasion, the greatest amphibious invasion in history, took place during a lull in the storms on June 6, 1944.  156,000 men hit the beach or parachuted behind the lines.  Ten thousand died, but the Allies gained a foothold in Europe, that ultimately led to the defeat of Nazi Germany. 

It would be ten months before Babs and Don would see each other again.  Her missions would take her from France to Yugoslavia, and his work would follow the invasion across France into Paris.   They only were reunited at the end of the war, when Don was transferred back to London. They spent several months together there, while he arranged for their passage back to America, and a life in Cincinnati.  But that’s another story.