tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52714091268330864862024-03-18T21:57:44.697-05:00In and About the Citymusings on the urban experience, chicago and beyondJames Iskahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219990004487304003noreply@blogger.comBlogger846125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5271409126833086486.post-16460974915983696502024-03-04T07:51:00.011-06:002024-03-10T11:29:35.720-05:00Revisiting a ClassicThis past weekend three quarters of my family drove up to Minnesota to look at colleges for our youngest child. Killing time during the six-hour drive, on her cellphone my wife opened up a random list of the 100 greatest films ever made. I'm kind of a sucker for these lists for many reasons, not the least of which is they provide an endless source of discussion, controversy and argument, due to their sins of commission and omission.<p>For starters, <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://jamesiska.blogspot.com/2024/02/getting-mad-and-getting-even.html" target="_blank">the film I brought up in my last post</a></span></b> was not to be found on the list. Do you really mean to tell me that the comedies <i>This is Spinal Tap</i> and <i>Airplane</i>, funny for their time but not nearly as much today as when they were made, are deserving to be among the 100 greatest films ever made, but the sublime <i>Local Hero</i> is not???</p><p>You know, that kind of stuff. </p><p>Frankly I could never put together a list like this as I don't think I've seen one hundred films in my life truly deserving of such a distinction. I mean, there are probably dozens of films by great directors like Kurosawa, Bergman, Tarkovsky, Fassbinder, Varda and scores of others I haven't seen yet that simply have to be better than say, <i>Chitty Chitty Bang Bang</i>, which might come in around number 100 of the top movies I have actually seen.</p><p></p><p>But in the end it's all subjective isn't it?</p><p>Well no, not really. There's a reason why certain films like <i>Citizen Kane</i> are <b>always </b>on these lists.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7_kc9fc11jFCPosvQPIPMoaLejRao0dJodSP3GFLVMEQvINcgz_OrAEAmi8ZrVyd636Gw7T3xjVvMItR3H5n5irV5ft4-sVwN3k1uR9qs0PyqcB8FRpMsIwKDHLVi7HjUt0gr_5hTX4F2VpadK2Co3viE69mXq353nO7WPuxwM3G3DOfoeg9DIc4EN-M/s1600/casa4.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1172" data-original-width="1600" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7_kc9fc11jFCPosvQPIPMoaLejRao0dJodSP3GFLVMEQvINcgz_OrAEAmi8ZrVyd636Gw7T3xjVvMItR3H5n5irV5ft4-sVwN3k1uR9qs0PyqcB8FRpMsIwKDHLVi7HjUt0gr_5hTX4F2VpadK2Co3viE69mXq353nO7WPuxwM3G3DOfoeg9DIc4EN-M/s320/casa4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>But not <i>Casablanca, </i>which some critics place at or near the top of their lists of greatest films ever made, while others like the authors of this list, don't think it even merits a spot in the top 100. I wasn't surprised by the snub as the 1942 Hollywood classic is somewhat polarizing; people either love it passionately or think it's overrated. Foremost among the latter group are the followers of the <b>Auteur School</b> of film criticism which places the worth of any film squarely upon the shoulders of its director, whom they consider the true author (auteur) of the work. Auteur criticism places a film within the context of its director's body of work and judge it primarily by whether it contributes to the particular vision and style of that director. <b>Alfred Hitchcock</b> would be a prime example of a director admired by the auteur critics as he has a unique vision and a definite visual and thematic style. *<p></p><p>Not so <b>Michael Curtiz</b>, who before directing <i>Casablanca</i>, already had dozens of Hollywood films and before that, many more in Austria and his native Hungary to his credit. Curtiz (an Americanization of his true surname Kertesz, a name familiar to anyone who is acquainted with the art of photography), made films in practically every popular genre at the time, from horror to mystery to film noir, from thriller to adventure, from love story to comedy to musical, including the Elvis Presley vehicle <i>King Creole </i>(probably the star's best film). Because of his tremendous output, Curtiz is often considered the ultimate Studio System director, one of many workers in the industry who were assigned films as much or more for practical reasons like his technical chops, his reputation for working within schedule and never going over budget, rather than for his personal vision. </p><p>And because of that, as his output was all over the place stylistically and thematically, most auteur critics feel Curtiz represented the studio's vision rather than his own. To them he is a craftsman rather than an artist. In less generous terms, some would call him a studio hack, albeit a very, very good one. </p><p>So where does <i>Casablanca </i>stand with the auteur critics? Respect, but often in the form of backhanded praise. This is from none less than <b>Andrew Sarris</b>, the American film critic who expanded upon the auteur theory from its origins in France:</p><p></p><blockquote>.<i>..the director’s one enduring masterpiece is, of course, "Casablanca", the happiest of happy accidents, and the most decisive exception to the auteur theory.</i></blockquote><p></p><p>Not all of the detractors of <i>Casablanca </i>were subscribers to the auteur theory, here's <b>Paulene Kael</b>:</p><p></p><blockquote><p><i>It's far from a great film but it has a special appealingly schlocky romanticism, and you're never really pressed to take its melodramatic twists and turns seriously. </i></p><p></p></blockquote><p>Responding to that comment, in an essay for <i>The Atlantic</i> celebrating the 70th anniversary of the film in 2012, David W. Brown, himself a great fan of <i>Casablanca </i>writes this:</p><p></p><blockquote><i>Nobody ever walked away from a screening of Casablanca and said, "Well I don't get it." Not with regard to its reputation as a great work, nor to the nature of its characters or plot. It's not a challenging work. But its universal themes and accessibility are inseparable from its place in the American film canon.</i></blockquote><p></p><p>Therein lies the issue with the movie, it's a great film because its themes are universal, we all get it; it's less than great because it doesn't challenge us.</p><p>Brown points out in his essay that greatness of any work of art comes from either smashing accepted standards to bits to create something entirely new, or taking those established standards to heights never realized before. </p><p><i>Citizen Kane </i>would fit into the first category, and <i>Casablanca </i>into the second. <br /></p><p>If you've seen the movie, you might be interested in <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sa27vRn8Cw" target="_blank">this shot by shot analysis of </a></span></b><i><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sa27vRn8Cw" target="_blank">Casablanca</a></span></b> </i>by one of its greatest supporters, the late Chicago based film critic Roger Ebert.</p><p>Ebert does a nice job putting everything into place. What the auteur critics seem to ignore is that film making is perhaps more than any other art, a collaborative effort as anyone who has ever sat through the closing credits of a movie realizes. Without minimizing the efforts of Curtiz one bit, Ebert points out that the greatness of Casablanca lies in the efforts of everyone involved from its producer <b>Hal Wallis </b>who probably shaped the final product more than anyone else, through the writers, <b>(Julius J. Epstein, Phillip G. Epstein </b>and<b> Howard Koch</b>), the cinematographer, (<b>Arthur Edison</b>), the editor, (<b>Owen Marks</b>), the music director, (<b>Max Steiner</b>), the costume and set designers (<b>Orry-Kelly </b>and <b>George James Hopkins</b>), the rest of the technical staff and of course, the amazing cast all the way down to the extras, truly one of the greatest collections of talent ever gathered for one film.<br /></p><p>I admire Ebert for his point of view and keen sense of observation but there are a few points he makes here that I have some issues with.</p><div>THE SCREENPLAY</div><div> </div><div>It's no secret that Casablanca is probably the most quotable movie ever, at least in American cinema. In his analysis, Roger Ebert says the true sign of a successful screenplay is when the audience leaves the theater quoting lines from the movie. I'm not sure I agree, it's kind of like saying the sign of a great work of music is if you're able to hum tunes from it after leaving the concert hall. That would certainly disqualify most western classical music written after 1850.</div><div><div><br /></div><div>Regardless, for all its memorable snippets of dialog, Casablanca also has more than its share of roll-your-eye inducing lines as well. Consider the following:</div><div><br /></div><div>
"Was that cannon fire or is it my heart pounding?"</div><div><br /></div><div>One would be hard pressed to write a cheesier line. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>The
son of actress <b>Joy Paige</b> who played the young Bulgarian bride in the
movie, recounted in her 2008 obituary in the <i>LA times</i> that his mother,
in 1942 a high school senior with family connections to the film
industry, read an early draft of the screenplay but was not impressed. She told her son she felt it was "corny and old fashioned." Fortunately
for her despite her reservations, she got and accepted the role which turned out to be her one true shot at silver screen immortality.<br /></div><div><br /></div>You be the judge. The following is a transcription of the screenplay highlighting Page's one big scene in the movie where her character, Annina, is looking for some advice from Rick Blaine (<b>Humphrey Bogart</b>). The action takes place in the dining room of Rick's Cafe Americain:</div><div> </div><blockquote><p>Annina meets Captain Renault, Chief of Police, in the hallway as she leaves the gambling room:</p><div>RENAULT: <i>How's lady luck treating you?</i> </div></blockquote><blockquote><div>Annina looks down<i>.</i></div></blockquote><blockquote><div>RENAULT<i>: Aw, too bad, you'll find him over there.</i></div><div><i> </i></div><div>Renault points in the direction of Rick. Annina sees him and goes to his table as Renault watches her attentively.</div><div><br /></div><div>ANNINA: <i>Monsieur Rick?</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>RICK: <i>Yes?</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>ANNINA: <i>Could I speak with you for just one moment please?</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Rick looks at her.</div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>RICK: <i>How'd you get in here? You're underage.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>ANNINA: <i>I came with Captain Renault.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>RICK (cynically): <i>Oh I should have known.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>ANNINA: <i>My husband is with me too.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>RICK: <i>He is? Well </i><i>Captain Renault</i><i> is getting broadminded. Sit down.</i></div><div><i>Will you have a drink?</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Anina shakes her head.</div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>RICK<i>: No of course not, you mind if I do?</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>ANNINA: <i>No</i>.</div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Rick pours himself a drink.</div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>ANNINA:<i> Monsieur Rick,</i><i> what kind of a man is </i><i>Captain Renault</i><i>?</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>RICK: <i>Oh he's just like any other man, only more so...</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>ANNINA: <i>No I mean, is he trustworthy, is his word...</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>RICK: <i>Now </i><i>just a minute, who told you to ask me that?</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>ANNINA: <i>He did, Captain Renault did.</i></div><div><i> </i></div><div>RICK: <i>I thought so, where's your husband?</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>ANNINA: <i>At the roulette table trying to win enough for our exit visa.</i></div><div><i>Well of course he's losing.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>RICK: <i>How long have you been married?</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>ANNINA: <i>Eight weeks, w</i><i>e come from Bulgaria.</i></div><div><i>Oh things are very bad there Monsieur, the devil has the people by the throat.</i></div><div><i>So Jan and I we, we do not want our children to grow up in such a country.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>RICK (wearily): S<i>o you decided to go to America?</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>ANNINA: <i>Yes but we haven't that much money and,</i></div><div><i>traveling is so expensive and difficult, it was much more than we thought to get here.</i></div><div><i>And then Captain Renault sees us. and he is so kind he wants to help us...</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>RICK: <i>Yes I'll bet...</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>ANNINA: <i>He tells me he can get us an exit visa but, but we have no money..</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>RICK: <i>Does he know that?</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>ANNINA: <i>Oh yes.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>RICK: A<i>nd he's still willing to give you a visa? </i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>ANNINA: <i>Yes monsieur.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>RICK: <i>And you want to know...</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>ANNINA: <i>Will he keep his word.?</i></div><div><br /></div><div>RICK: <i>He always has.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>There is a silence. Annina is very disturbed.</div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>ANNINA: <i>Oh monsieur you are a man, if someone loved you very much so that your happiness was the only thing that she wanted in the world, and she did a bad thing to make certain of it, could you forgive her...</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Rick stares off into space.</div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>RICK: <i>Nobody ever loved me that much.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>ANNINA: ...<i>and he never knew, and the girl kept this bad thing locked in her heart,</i></div><div><i>that would be alright, wouldn't it?</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>RICK (harshly): <i>You want my advice?</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>ANNINA: <i>Oh yes please.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>RICK: <i>Go back to Bulgaria.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>ANNINA: <i>Oh but if you knew what it means to us to get to America...</i></div><div><i>oh, but if Jan should find out, he's such a boy, in many ways I am so much older than he is.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>RICK: <i>Yes well everyone has problems in Casablanca maybe yours will work out. You'll excuse me.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Rick abruptly rises.</div><div><br /></div><div>ANNINA (tonelessly): <i>Thank you Monsieur.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>He quickly goes off, leaving Annina alone at the table. She remains seated, too demoralized to move.</div></blockquote><div>And... cut.</div><div><br /></div><div>Are you moved to tears by reading that? Probably not.</div><div><br /></div><div>The sincerity Joy Page brings to the role of Annina kind of sort of pulls off all that wonky dialog ("The Devil has people by the throat" really???). But I'm afraid even a more seasoned actor could never take that claptrap beyond grade B level melodrama. Conversely, Rick's one-line responses, at least on paper, convey the level of indifference and snarkiness we've come to expect from his character up to that point, not much more.</div><div><br /></div><div>You wouldn't know it just from reading the dialog, but this is the pivotal scene in the movie, there's a lot going on here. </div><div><br /></div><div>First, Rick is defining for us his complicated relationship with Renault (<b>Claude Rains</b>). He knows full well that Renault is a scoundrel as his snide comments suggest. The conversation is rapid fire, both actors starting their lines before the other has a chance to finish, except for one time not indicated in the script. When Annina asks if Renault will keep his word, Rick pauses only for a second, but it seems much longer. For the first time in the scene, he speaks without irony:</div><div><br /></div><div>"He always has."</div><div><br /></div><div>Rick and Renault share a mutual admiration, even affection, yet neither would hesitate throwing the other under the bus if it were necessary. Here Rick withdraws his glance from the young woman as if to wash his hands of the sordid affair. He tells the young woman in not so many words that yes Renault, a man of his word, will indeed grant her and her husband the exit visas, after he fucks her. The way Bogart delivers that line, he conveys both fondness for the man, and contempt.</div><div><br /></div><div>Talk about complicated. </div><div><br /></div><div>Then Rick exposes his vulnerability in the middle of Annina's sad confession about her dilemma.</div><div><br /></div><div>His face changes from an expression of compassion to anguish when her words hit close to home as she talks about a woman loving a person so much she would do anything to make him happy. Rick has just been reacquainted with the love of his life Ilsa Lund (<b>Ingrid Bergman</b>) in the arms of another man. He allows himself a moment of self-pity when he responds: "Nobody loves me that much."</div><div><br /></div><div>Then fatalism sets in as he crushes Annina's dream of a better life by advising her to just give up and go back home.</div><div><br /></div><div>After some more mushy words from the poor girl, Rick abruptly gets up and leaves her in the lurch, telling her dismissively that everybody's got problems in Casablanca, so leave me alone and have a nice day.</div><div><br /></div><div>Same old Rick sticking his neck out for no one.</div><div><br /></div><div>At least that's what we're led to believe as the scene shifts to another part of Rick's place where back to business, he welcomes Ilsa and her husband Victor Laszlo (<b>Paul Henreid</b>) back to his nightclub. This scene is so filled with tension between Rick and Ilsa that we forget about poor Annina. </div><div><br /></div><div>But not Rick. In the subsequent scene Rick enters the gambling room where Annina's husband Jan is sitting dejectedly at the roulette wheel. The croupier Emil (played by the great French actor <b>Marcel Dalio </b>in an uncredited role) asks Jan, who is only holding a few chips, if he'd like to place another bet. "I'd better not" he says, those chips probably representing the last of the couple's savings. Rick, looking over his shoulder says: "have you tried 22?". "I said 22" he repeats a little louder, speaking to Jan but looking at Emil who gets the message. </div><div> </div><div>Of all the memorable lines from Casablanca that are quoted endlessly, the last one Rick says to Annina before darting out of the room...</div><div><i></i></div><blockquote><div><i>Yes well everyone has problems in Casablanca maybe yours will work out.</i></div><div></div></blockquote><p>... is not one of them. But it dawned on me after having seem the film for the umpteenth time this week that it should be. When he says everyone has problems in Casablanca, perhaps he is referring to his own. Thinking of it in those terms, in his mind he is first diminishing his own suffering by empathizing with another person's pain. Doing his part to help ease that pain is step two.</p><p>In that gesture at the roulette wheel, coming at no small cost to both Rick and his business's reputation, he solves Annina'a dilemma, much to Renault's consternation. And there in one fell swoop, the pathologically guarded Rick at last reveals who he really is for all to see, including himself.</p><div></div><div>That seemingly dismissive line to Annina foreshadows the greatest line of the film:</div><div><i></i><blockquote><i>I'm not good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that.</i></blockquote></div><div>Screenwriters provide the architecture of a film, not just the dialog. They don't write for the printed page any more than an architect designs for the blueprint. They depend on the cast, the director, the cinematographer, the editor, and a whole cast of characters to make their words come to life. That's the magic of cinema.</div><div><br /></div><div>Watch this clip of the two scenes involving the Bulgarian couple to see what I mean. Pay close attention to Bogart's physical reactions to Joy Page and especially to his exquisite timing. If you doubt what a great film actor he was, you have the script, give it a go yourself.</div><div><br /></div><div>Unfortunately, the middle scene has been edited out of this clip. Better yet, watch the whole movie, watch it again if you've already seen it.</div><div><br /><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xD_bKVAZJBw?si=2WgHnAj5E-vKDRYR" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div><div><br /></div><div>Do I consider this great screenwriting despite its not always stellar dialog? </div><div><br /></div><div>You bet I do, along with great acting directing, cinematography and you name it.</div><div><br /></div><div>VICTOR LASZOW</div><div><br /></div><div>Roger Ebert claims in his analysis that <i>Casablanca </i>is a near perfect movie. Then he points to some small issues such as continuity errors and the many parts of the story that challenge one's suspension of disbelief, all of which he admits, don't really take anything away from the film.</div><div><br /></div><div>I agree.</div><div><br /></div><div>It seems Ebert's main objection to the film is the performance of Paul Henreid in the role of the unassailable resistance hero, Victor Laszlo. Laszlo, a Czechoslovak with Hungarian name**, is a continuous thorn in the side of the Nazis. He has escaped from a concentration camp and found his way to Morocco, then part of unoccupied France.*** From there he hoped to obtain two official letters of transit that would permit him and his wife Ilsa to leave the country for neutral Portugal, then on to the United States, where he could continue his work in relative safety. </div><div><br /></div><div>If you've seen the movie you can skip the next paragraph. If not and you're interested in how Rick got involved in all this, read on:</div><div></div><blockquote><div>FOR THAT WE MUST GO TO FLASHBACK, cue the harpist...</div><div><br /></div><div>PARIS-1940: It turns out that while Victor was in Nazi captivity, Ilsa mistakenly learned that he was dead. Thinking herself a widow, Ilsa met Rick in Paris, fell in love with him, hears the first of many "here's looking at you kids", yadda yadda yadda, then in march the Nazis. Rick, himself no friend of the Third Reich, decides to skedaddle, but not before Ilsa finds out that Victor is very much alive, has escaped from the concentration camp, and is back in Paris. She can't face Rick with the news so instead of joining him on the last train out of town, she sends a note with Sam (<b>Dooley Wilson</b>, more on him later) telling Rick without explanation that she can never see him again, have a nice life. </div></blockquote><div>So back to the present and Victor and Ilsa end up unbeknownst to them at the club of Ilsa's lover and now we've got ourselves one barnburner of a love triangle.</div><div><br /></div><div>So what's wrong with Henreid's performance according to Ebert? There's no chemistry between Victor and Ilsa, he claims. I believe at one point Ebert says that Henreid is too stiff, apparently not realizing the mixed message that term sends.</div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, stiff or flaccid, it hardly matters, the character of Victor is all about his work. He certainly loves Ilsa, we know that because he says so, even if Ebert is not convinced. Ingrid Bergman always said that when they were making the film, she asked director Michael Curtiz which character Ilsa was supposed to really be in love with. He reportedly told her to dole out the loving equally between the two and that they'd sort it out at the end of the story, which legend has it, was not determined until the day they shot the final scene. </div><div><br /></div><div>But it's clear to me in the final cut that Ilsa worships Laszlo (perhaps more like a father), but loves Rick.**** That is what defines her conflict. Had there been more "chemistry" between Laszlo and Ilsa as Ebert and others suggest, and all else had been the same, she would have chosen her husband in a heartbeat without all the drama.</div><div><br /></div><div>Not a very interesting ending. </div><div><br /></div><div>AND SPEAKING OF THAT ENDING (spoiler alert!!!)</div><div><br /></div><div>If you've read anything about the making of Casablanca, you know that the filmmakers were flying by the seat of their pants, making everything up as they went along. At times it is said, any given day's shooting could have included dialog that was written that very morning and rushed over to the set. As I mentioned above, Ingrid Bergman didn't know which man she was supposed to be in love with. Some suggest even the screenwriters had no clue which of the two, Laszlo or Rick, she would end up with in the end. </div><div><br /></div><div>Roger Ebert points out quite logically that there is no way Ilsa could have ended up with her lover Rick rather than her husband, as it would have been strictly forbidden by the enforcers of the extremely conservative Motion Picture Production Code, the self-regulating moral police force better known as the Hays Code. With its intimations of extramarital goings on, and even a not too subtle suggestion of latent homosexuality, (remember this is 1942), <i>Casablanca </i>was already pushing the envelope, and the producers had to do several end-runs around the censors to get the more titillating scenes on the screen. But an ending where Ilsa leaves her husband for her lover and not getting her comeuppance for it would have been a non-starter in 1942 Hollywood, strictly on moral grounds. *****</div><div><br /></div><div>But there is a vastly more profound reason why Ilsa got on that plane with Victor and not Rick. It would have made no sense insofar as the trajectory of the story.</div><div><br /></div><div>For decades, Casablanca has been described as a love story set to the backdrop of war. But the war was not a backdrop, it wasn't even the proverbial 800 pound gorilla in the room. World War II <b>was </b>the story. Without it, the film would not have been <i>Casablanca</i>, it would have been <i>Paris</i>, <i>Oslo</i>, <i>Prague</i>, New York, <i>Berlin</i>, <i>Sophia </i>and all the other places the characters escaped from to end up in Casablanca. In other words, without the war, there would be no <i>Casablanca </i>the movie because nobody in it would have met each other.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>More important, the film was made during the war. When Rick in a perplexed drunken stupor cynically asks Ilsa how the story of their love triangle ends, she responds, "I don't know, the ending hasn't been written yet." That response has a double meaning clearly not lost to the people who were watching the film at the time of its release. On the surface she's saying she doesn't know which man she'll end up with. In a much deeper sense, she, everyone watching the film in 1942, and for that matter anyone alive all over the world at the time, had no idea how the only important story of the day would turn out. It certainly wasn't looking good at the time for those who preferred freedom, justice and democracy to fascism, tyranny and genocide.</div><div><br /></div><div>By the time the film was released, the United States government was demanding sacrifice from every single American, Tragically and unjustly, Americans of Japanese descent were forced to sacrifice more than any other group. The government was drafting American sons (the daughters went voluntarily), asking of them the biggest sacrifice of all. </div><div><br /></div><div>Imagine an ending where Ilsa and Rick, both it turns out with skin in the game, throw away all their commitments and values to run off together and live happily ever after, while the rest of the world was sacrificing, suffering and dying.</div><div><br /></div><div>Preposterous.</div><div><br /></div><div>What most people who have written about Casablanca for the past fifty years or so seem to miss is its unmistakable role as a propaganda film.</div><div><br /></div><div>As usual, I've gone on much too long, so we'll save that part of our story for another day.</div><div><br /></div><div>Stay tuned, les jeux sont faits.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>NOTES:</div><div><br /></div><div>* There's definitely an auteur theory bias to this list. For the record, three Hitchcock films made the list but surprisingly none are in the top ten. Stanley Kubrick has five including number one, <i>2001: A Space Odessey</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div>**The writers probably thought a truly Czech name like Jiři Dvořák would be too hard to pronounce. Ebert could have commented on Henreid's Austrian accent too, but like the inappropriate name, that didn't seem to bother him either. Fortunately, none of the actors in the international cast bothered to fake an accent to mimic the nationality of the character they were supposed to be playing. I guess having any kind of foreign, i.e. non-American accent was enough to lend the film a hint of authenticity, at least to the American audience. The one exception is June Page, one of only three Americans in the credited cast, (Bogey and Dooley Wilson were the other two). Given the diverse accents in the film, Page's American accent is a little off putting when she says she's from Bulgaria. </div><div><br /></div><div>***A little history lesson. Roger Ebert claims one of the biggest inaccuracies in the film is the idea that Victor Laszlo, an enemy of the Third Reich, could arrive in French controlled Morocco and not be immediately arrested by the Gestapo as by this time France was occupied by the Germans. This is not quite so. While the northern portion of contiguous France, including Paris was occupied by the Nazis, the southern part of the country and its North African colonies were governed by l'État français (The French State) better known as Vichy France, named after the city which was its capital. While Vichy had signed a peace treaty with Germany and collaborated with the Nazis, it was still an independent state at the time the film takes place, and the Germans despite their influence, would have had no official jurisdiction there. Of course, to paraphrase Carl (<b>S. K. Sakall</b><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;">) </span>the ex-pat German waiter at Rick's: "being Germans they would have taken him anyway."</div><div><br /></div><div>**** All the chemistry on screen may have been between Ilsa and Rick, not Ilsa and Laszlow, but in real life, legend has it that Ingrid Berman and Paul Henreid had an affair, while she and Humphrey Bogart barely spoke to each other off the set. I guess that's why they call it "acting."</div><div><br /></div><div>***** The Hays Commission did let another moral transgression slide, in our day a far greater sin, the blatant sex crimes of Captain Renault. I'll get to that in my next post. </div>James Iskahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219990004487304003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5271409126833086486.post-72412601384931068342024-02-16T12:48:00.011-06:002024-02-17T10:49:25.813-06:00Getting Mad and Getting Even<p>One of my favorite films is the 1983 comedy-drama written and directed by Bill Forsythe called <i><b>Local Hero</b>. </i>It's about a a young oil company executive sent to a village on the coast of Scotland, to buy up all the property in town to make way for a massive refinery. The exec, "Mac" MacIntyre (played by Peter Riegert) starts out the movie as a typical American to much of the world: he has an MBA, he drives a Porche, he's a capitalist city-slicker and so on, your typical "yuppie" in the parlance of the day. As such, Mac is not a little put off by having to travel to a remote part of the British Isles when he could easily close the deal over the phone from his office in Houston. Little does he realize before he sets off, that the only telephone in town is inside a phone booth (phone box in local speak) on the beach.</p><p>Once there he slowly falls in love with the place, the fictional village of Ferness, for its charms, its breathtaking scenery, its slower pace of life, and its people, especially the woman who happens to be the wife of his chief contact in town. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcKnS8iUebxQYedkkj1xCH6P2cfW1TVM10yjq9mjo5-DUTF4IbsdzA4tIpeqt9T_psyWKbZ_XDeb5NHtsR2EBwP2p8yA-J4oE8rGIEiHmia8vfIWfT-7CLYDswGXbEmEMn65kZddy8tsv9r5VdSTskqDMREDjn22A4SdybMSrXX92KMA3Zb6JeS4G9rw0/s711/LocalHero.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="711" data-original-width="474" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcKnS8iUebxQYedkkj1xCH6P2cfW1TVM10yjq9mjo5-DUTF4IbsdzA4tIpeqt9T_psyWKbZ_XDeb5NHtsR2EBwP2p8yA-J4oE8rGIEiHmia8vfIWfT-7CLYDswGXbEmEMn65kZddy8tsv9r5VdSTskqDMREDjn22A4SdybMSrXX92KMA3Zb6JeS4G9rw0/s320/LocalHero.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><p></p><p>Soon enough, MacIntyre becomes conflicted about his mission to enable the destruction of the lovely Ferness and the countryside surrounding it. <br /></p><p>It turns out the villagers are two steps ahead of him. The moment they learn the plans of the oil company to buy them out, they start planning how best to spend their new found fortune. The devotion for the place they present to MacIntyre is only an act to drive up the price of their property. Even the local pastor is in on the act as his church serves as the meeting place for townsfolk to gather and discuss their plans to best cash in.</p><p>The only snag is Ben Knox, whose surname is the same as the oil company's. Ben lives in a dilapidated shack on the beach and, thanks to his family's century's old accord with the Crown, happens to own the entire beach, lock, stock and barrel. He does not intend to sell what turns out to be the most significant parcel of the site. </p><p>So, Mac's boss, Knox Oil's president Felix Happer (played by Burt Lancaster), flies in from Houston to personally negotiate with Ben.</p><p>Funny thing, but in a case of life imitating art, another film made a generation later and its sequel documenting real-life events, have several parallels with the fictional <i>Local Hero</i>.</p>For starters, the documentaries are also set in the Scottish Highlands not far from the city of Aberdeen. An American company sets its sights on developing its own large-scale project on the coast. Many of the locals sell off their land to the developers, but a handful, one in particular whose story the film is centered around, flat out refuse. <br /><br /><div>The boss of the company in the documentary bears only a slight physical resemblance to Lancaster's Felix Happer, but there are a few parallels between the two. Both are oddball characters, their eccentricities at times defying credibility. Narcissism also plays a role in both men's characters.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>That is where their similarities end.<br /></div><div><br /></div></div><div>Happer's narcissism is garden variety, even charming at times. His true passion is astronomy, and his greatest ambition it seems is to discover a celestial object and have it named after himself. <b><span style="color: red;">*</span></b> </div><div><br /></div><div>The other's narcissism is off-the-charts and toxic.</div><div><br /></div><div>The similarities between the stories were not lost on the creator of the documentary, <b>Anthony Baxter,</b> who with the permission of the owner of its rights and the blessing of Bill Forsythe, incorporated scenes from <i>Local Hero</i> into his own films.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Local Hero</i> isn't really about the construction of the plant, nor the planned destruction of the town. It's about history, nature, myths and legends, beauty, wonder, magic, transformation, the bonds that tie all human beings together, and other things that make life worth living. But mostly it's a love poem to Scotland. As such, it could be considered an allegorical fantasy. <a href="https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=local+hero#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:752302d8,vid:nufb3JysCgY,st:0" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Here is a link to the original trailer</span></b></a> which nicely captures the spirit of the film without giving too much away. </div><div><br /></div><div>The two documentaries sadly, are all too real. They are about hubris, deceit, pettiness, greed, the wanton destruction of nature, and people who do everything in their power to stand in the way of all that. </div><div><p>In that last sense, one theme both films share is the indefatigable human spirit.</p><p>The Ben Knox of the original documentary is <b>Michael Forbes</b>, a quarry worker, farmer and part time salmon fisherman who refuses to sell his land and home of over forty years to the Americans who want to build a golf course and resort over it. Forbes is the star of Part I of the documentary as much of the film centers around his life, struggle, and his neighbors' and family's ordeal. The seeds of Part II are planted at the end of Part I, and the role of star switches over to Michael's mother, <b>Molly Forbes. </b>Her beauty, strength, dignity, pride, sense of humor, and love of her home, steal the show. The best line of both films comes at the beginning of Part II when after being informed that the American businessman claimed she reminds him of his mother, Molly responds with both a sneer and a gleam in her eye: "Well he hadn't been very good to her then."</p><p>If you haven't guessed by now, the Felix Happer of the documentaries is Donald Trump.</p><p>The name of the original documentary is <i>You've Been Trumped, </i>released in 2011<i>, </i>and its sequel, <i>You've been Trumped Too, </i>released in 2016. <b><span style="color: red;">**</span></b></p><p>I won't go into all the sordid details other than to say that Part I begins before ground is broken on the project, and over the course of its runtime, we see ancient dunes, at one time protected by the Scottish government as a unique ecosystem, home to numerous endangered species of flora and fauna, lost piece by piece as earth movers build the golf course. Adding insult to injury, the developers created giant berms to block the views of the homes Trump couldn't get his rapacious little hands on. He called the homes he couldn't destroy "eyesores".<br /></p><p>Trump reserved his harshest words for Michael Forbes whose property he referred to as a "pigsty", and to Michael himself as a person whom "every Scot should be ashamed of." <br /></p><p>That comment no doubt had great influence on the Scottish people because soon after the release of <i>You've been Trumped,</i> Michael Forbes won the "Top Scot" award, an annual popular public vote sponsored by the makers of Glenfiddich Scotch as a part of their Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Awards campaign. In response, Trump threw one of his trademark <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-20608607" target="_blank">hissy fits</a></span></b> condemning Glenfiddich, pledging never to serve the hooch in any of his properties ever again. I guess that sure showed 'em. </p><p>The conflict between Forbes and Trump received world-wide coverage and some of the most poignant scenes in both films show the tremendous support Michael and his family have received <a href="https://aberdeenvoice.com/tag/michael-forbes/" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">from complete strangers</span></b><span style="color: black;"> </span></a><span>all over the world</span>.<br /></p><p>Part I ends with a particularly troubling event. The Forbes family discovers their water supply has dried up after construction workers were seen digging in the vicinity of the natural spring, the source of their water, well as they were building a road. Despite the Forbes's rightful demand to restore their water, nothing happened except broken promises and the Trump Organization calling the police to arrest the filmmakers for having the nerve to ask why the group would not take care of their legal responsibility and repair the damages they made to the Forbes's water supply.<br /></p><p>Much of Part II is devoted to Molly, by this time in her nineties, who spends much of her time hauling buckets in a wheelbarrow back and forth to obtain water from a nearby stream so she could flush her toilet. The only potable water available to her and the rest of her family was bottled water. Rather than the one-week fix Team Trump kept promising the Forbes family, the situation lasted for five years until Michael, in defiance of Trump and the local police he had in his pocket, took it upon himself to dig a trench in the access road for the golf course and fix the broken pipes himself. </p><p>During the filming of Part II, before the water situation was resolved, Trump was running for President of the United States and Baxter had the inspired idea to fly Michael Forbes and his wife <b>Sheila </b>to Cleveland during the Republican National Convention. While there they struck up conversations with Trump supporters, some of whom were genuinely moved by their situation while others could not be swayed. One of them in justifying Trump's actions remarked that his man doesn't get mad, he gets even. </p><p>Now where have I heard that before? </p><p>Oh that's right, I heard it a couple weeks ago from Trump himself after winning the New Hampshire primary while he was trashing his opponent, Nikki Haley.<br /></p><p>"I don't get mad, I get even" sounds kind of cool and defiant in a Clint Eastwood sort of way.</p><p>But what does it really mean? <br /></p><p>On the surface, the phrase implies that getting mad and getting even are mutually exclusive things. Getting mad implies loosing one's cool, acting irrationally and uncontrollably, while getting even in this comparison anyway, implies a cool, measured response to an offense. As the saying goes: "revenge is a dish best served cold."</p><p>There is a certain logic to getting even, after all, doing unto others as they have done unto us is basic human nature, in stark contrast to the so called "Golden Rule" which suggests quite the opposite.</p><p>The Golden Rule in one wording or other, exists as the basis of the justice system of every culture I can think of, the primary tool to help human beings get along with one another by helping settle conflicts if not avoiding them altogether.</p><p>Yet doing unto others as we would have done unto us is not a one-size-fits-all rule for successful human relationships as it does not go nearly far enough. It
hardly works in truly close relationships such as marriage for example where a
more appropriate rule would be do unto her/him as she/he would have
done to herself/himself. </p>In other words, we're all different and have
different expectations of one another, so treating our partner
precisely as we would like to be treated ourselves is a recipe for
disaster. I consider myself something of an expert on the issue. </div><div> </div><div>In the same vein, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to resolving
conflicts because conflicts come in all shapes and sizes from petty to
tragic. With the exception of the tragic, we all differ as to what
conflict constitutes a true offense. </div><div><br /></div><div>For people used to always getting their way like Donald Trump, every conflict is a true offense, a personal affront worthy of getting even. Contrary to what Trump says about not getting mad, as borne out by Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony under oath before Congress, he does indeed get mad, a lot. It was she you might remember who had to clean the ketchup off the walls of the White House dining room after he threw his plate of lunch against it like a two-year-old, when he received some news that displeased him.</div><div><p>In reality, getting mad and getting even are joined at the hip. Getting even is just one of many responses to anger. If a conflict does not make us angry, we feel no need to get even. While it may be useful at times, especially to make the aggrieved party feel better, getting even, especially if it means eye-for-eye style justice, is rarely a useful tool to resolving conflicts, which you must admit is kind of a useful skill for someone who wants to be president.</p><p>Let's use Trump as an example. He got mad at Michael Forbes and got even by calling him names and making his ninety-year-old mother haul buckets of water from a stream in a wheelbarrow so she could flush her toilet. </p><p>Yet Michael and Sheila Forbes continue to live in their home as Trump's disgruntled neighbors, no doubt still pissing him off to no end. (Molly unfortunately passed away in 2021 at the age of 96).</p><p>He got mad at a whiskey company because they published the results of a public poll he didn't like, so he got even by banning their whiskey at his establishments.</p><p>Seems to me Glenfiddich is still the first name most people come up with when they think of single malt scotch. Heck, I can even buy it at my local grocery store. </p><p>And he got mad at the United States for not re-electing him president in 2020. So he got back at us by waging a riot in and around the Capitol in the hopes of overturning two cornerstones of our democracy, a free election and the peaceful transfer of power. </p><p>Four indictments and 92 criminal counts against him later, he's running for president again for the sole purpose of keeping himself out of jail for the rest of his life. </p><p>Seems to me like an awful lot of trouble just to get even with somebody.</p><p><br /></p><p>CODA</p><p>On the flip side, there is no way that Michael and Sheila Forbes or their neighbors could ever get even at Trump for all the grief he put them through. <br /></p><p>Yet there's always laughter which is the next best thing. This from 2017:<br /></p><p><br /><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3pbTmXsfiYk?si=xv1BYzZ8vd5S8Zr1" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></p><p><br /></p><p></p><p><span style="color: red;"><b>* </b></span>The fictional Felix Happer's wish was granted in real life when in 1992, an asteroid was discovered and named by its discoverer (no doubt a fan of the film), 7345Happer.</p><p><b style="color: red;">** </b><i>You've been Trumped </i>is available on most streaming platforms. You can watch <i>You've been Trumped Too</i> for free on YouTube by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9RweR9EUSg" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b>clicking here</b></span></a>. I don't feel it's necessary to watch them in the order in which they were made. In fact, as the sequel prominently features Molly, if you're like me you'll instantly fall in love with her and her story, so watching them in reverse order may even be preferable. </p></div>James Iskahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219990004487304003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5271409126833086486.post-64173400028073357532024-02-08T00:00:00.036-06:002024-02-12T17:04:51.711-06:00The Thrill of Victory, and...?<p>Quick, finish that phrase! </p><p>If you can, you're old like me. </p><p>If not, it's part of the intro to one of the longest running shows in American television history, <i>ABC's Wide World of Sports. </i></p><p>Here is the intro's narration in its entirety, written by Stanley Ralph Ross, and read by <b>Jim McKay</b>:<br /></p><p><i>Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport... the
thrill of victory... and the agony of defeat... the human drama of
athletic competition... This is </i>ABC's Wide World of Sports!</p><p>McKay's voiceover and its accompanying musical fanfare remained unchanged for most of the show's run from 1961 until 1998. The visuals, stock footage from sites around the world mixed with action shots of athletes from figure skaters to arm wrestlers to everything in between, were updated every year. </p><p>Except for one clip.</p><p>It was the shot of ski jumper <b>Vinko Bogotaj</b> that illustrated the words: "the agony of defeat". Week after week, year after year, decade after decade, fans of the show saw Bogotaj losing control of his skis on the ramp just before he was about to make his jump. Instead of gracefully springing into the wild blue yonder like an eagle soaring off a cliff, his skis providing enough lift to keep him airborne for several seconds until he gently meets the hill below, Bogotaj tumbled off the ramp looking more like a bowling ball than an eagle, knocking down every stationary object in his way. </p><p>If you've seen the clip, even only once, you've never forgotten it. <br /></p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv368yWOSas" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Here's a link to the 1974 iteration.</span></b></a></p><p>There may have been pedestrian reasons not to replace the clip for all those years. Maybe it was difficult convincing other athletes that it would be a good idea to allow footage of themselves screwing up used to illustrate defeat over and over again.<br /></p><p>Or maybe the show's producers were sending us a message sticking with that clip of Bogotaj while all the other images of athletes experiencing the thrill of victory came and went. Could the message be that victory is fleeting while defeat is eternal? </p><p>I don't know, I just made that up, kind of profound, isn't it? </p><p>Consider this: in any sporting event, the honor of experiencing the thrill of victory only goes to one competitor, or team of them, while the agony of defeat is shared by many. In that sense, sports are kind of like life, only more so. </p><p>Since I'm writing this the week before the Super Bowl, I have football on my mind, at least a little. The last few weeks of NFL playoffs featured many fantastic games that were competitive until the end, some of them won by three points or less. That means the difference in those games was one field goal. In at least three of those games leading up to the big game this Sunday, field goals <b>not </b>made were the deciding factor. Two of those were attempts missed by the kickers from Buffalo and Green Bay. The third was a field goal not attempted as the head coach of Detroit chose to "go for it" unsuccessfully on fourth down, rather than attempting a much less risky field goal and scoring the three points that go with it.</p><p>I propose that defeat is far more agonizing in team sports when the mistake of one member costs the team a victory, or at least the chance of one. Magnify that by at least one hundredfold and you might understand the pressure placed on the football kicker. While his teammates battle in the trenches fighting hand-to-hand combat against the defense, beating themselves up play after play trying to move the ball yard-by-yard into a position to score, the kicker sits and waits. If his teammates don't succeed in moving the ball past the goal line to score a touchdown for six points, the next best thing is to get within thirty or maybe forty yards. When and if that happens, the kicker has only one job, kick the ball between the goalposts for three points. Sounds simple, doesn't it?<br /></p><p>Try it sometime. </p><p>It looks easy because professional football kickers are successful on average, about 90 percent of the time. If a FG attempt fails in the middle of a game as happened to the Green Bay and Buffalo kickers, hopefully there's time to make up for it. Consequently, there's usually not much public display of agony during a missed field goal, the game just goes on.</p><p>But when it happens at the end of a game, that's a different story. Some of the most famous football games in history including a few Super Bowls were decided by a field goal either made or missed in the last seconds.</p><p>Make it and you're the hero, miss it and you'd rather be swabbing the deck of a tramp steamer. </p><p>Talk about the agony of defeat.</p><p>For me, one play along those lines stands out above the rest. It is known simply as the "double doink". The mere mention of those two words, or the name of the main player involved in the play is enough to drive any <b>Chicago Bears</b> fan into a deep state of melancholia. </p><p>I won't go into much background, suffice it to say the opportunity to move on to the next round of the playoffs after their best season in years<b><span style="color: red;">*</span></b>, rested upon the foot of the team's kicker, Cody Parkey. </p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R3p4f-QF5I" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b>Here is a link to the last play of consequence in the Chicago Bears' 2018-19 season.</b></span></a> The call is from the Philadelphia Eagles' Spanish language announcer, Rickie Riccardo (I'm not kidding, that's really his name). You may not understand a word he's saying but the tone of his voice from the winning side, and the faces of the players and the head coach on the losing side, contrast the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat better than anything I can think of, with not a little humiliation thrown in for good measure.</p><p>If <i>Wide World of Sports</i> is revived and there is ever a need to redo the intro, I think Cody Parkey would be a noble successor to Vinko Bogotaj as the enduring symbol of agony.</p><p>There are many who claim that sports are a metaphor for life. There are probably an equal number who reject that assertion, after all, how many average people experience the kind of adulation bestowed upon a sports hero, or the public humiliation of an athlete whose mistake loses the big game for his or her team? But that's missing the point, the fact is, few professional athletes themselves are in a position to experience those things either. </p><p>It's in the details I believe, where sports and real-life merge. </p><p>For example, on the surface, every head-to-head athletic competition can be viewed as a zero-sum game, where you have one winner and at least one loser. But it goes much deeper than that. As much as sports like American football are often compared to war, (<a href="https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=george%20carlin%20baseball%20vs%20football&mid=6DF0B1655A6CA09CAEEA6DF0B1655A6CA09CAEEA&ajaxhist=0" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b>Check out George Carlin's brilliant comedy routine comparing baseball to football</b></span></a>), in sports, the losers always live to play another day. </p><p>What do running backs Barry Sanders, Gale Sayers, Eric Dickerson, quarterbacks Warren Moon, Dan Fouts, defensive linemen Deacon Jones, Merlin Olsen, the most intimidating tackler in the game, linebacker Dick Butkus, and perhaps the game's greatest wide receiver (before Jerry Rice came on the scene), Steve Largent have in common? They are all professional football Hall of Famers who have never won a championship. In a sense you could say great as they were as players, they were all perpetual losers. </p><p>So obviously there is no shame in losing, it's an integral part of the game. </p><p>What can we learn from that? </p><p>One thing is that we have to look at the bigger picture. In football as in every other sport, the big picture is the Game itself. Teams don't exist in a vacuum, they depend on all the other teams to play against for their existence, otherwise, what would be the point? Teams depend upon the league to provide the structure in which to compete. And that structure depends upon a set of rules in which to play. </p><p>Playing any sport or come to think of it, conducting any reasonable contest without rules that every participant agrees upon would be like a chess player knocking
down all the pieces on the board in the middle of a game with the
exception of his own king, then declaring himself the winner.</p><p>We have enough of that already in our society. <br /></p><p>That's not to say the rules are always adjudicated correctly. Sometimes games are decided by bad calls. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjvZHMod_3E" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b>Check out this notoriously bad call</b></span></a>, or more accurately, non-call. It was a foul that everyone in the world watching the game saw, except for the officials. Had a penalty (pass interference in case you're keeping score) been called as it should have, the <b>New Orleans Saints</b> would have been in a very advantageous position to win the game and move on to the Super Bowl. Instead sans call, regulation time ended with the game tied and the L.A. Rams won the game in sudden death overtime by you guessed it, kicking a field goal. Then THEY got the chance to lose to Tom Brady and the New England Patriots in the big game two weeks later. </p><p>Yes the Saints protested and naturally got nowhere, even though the offending player received a fine from the league for his dirty play. It was a terrible no-call, perhaps one of the worst ever in a widely seen playoff game. But the league determined, rightly in my opinion, that it was nothing more than human error, pure and simple. Frustrating as that is, especially if your team is on the short end of the stick, that's part of the game as well.</p><p>The best we can do in situations like this is realize life isn't always fair, that the best team, ours of course, doesn't always win, brush ourselves off, and live to play another day, which of course is what they always do in New Orleans: laissez le bon temps rouler. <br /></p><p>As with all sports, the Game is bigger than any one athlete or team. To illustrate that, tens of millions of football fans will gather this Sunday to watch a contest featuring two teams most of them are not fans of, as members of the team they root passionately for, having been long eliminated from competition, will also be watching. </p><p>There are lots of reasons to watch the Super Bowl for people who are not football fans. It's an American ritual for starters. It's an excuse to get together with friends and family to have a party. There are the eagerly anticipated commercials, short films created just for the event that in some cases display remarkable creative talent of storyteller-artists, all in 60 seconds or less. There's the halftime show which in my opinion with the exception of one, Prince in 2007, usually sucks. This year there's the additional sideshow of hands down the world's most popular pop star at the moment who also happens to be the girlfriend of one of the players. She'll be there too. </p><p>Then on Monday morning, rest assured tens of millions of Americans will be discussing all that around the proverbial water cooler. </p><p>And yes, there's the game itself, the ultimate achievement for any athlete who has ever stepped onto a gridiron wearing pads, cleats and a helmet. History has shown that it too is usually a disappointment, failing to live up to all the hype. We'll just have to wait and see this Sunday. <b><span style="color: #cc0000;">**</span></b></p><p>Oh I almost forgot about the wagering, something that predates athletes wearing clothes when they perform their magic. <br /></p><p>For a few hours, at least a third of the country will be brought together to participate in a uniquely American ritual that has been around since 1967. </p><p>We have few things to unite us these days and when we are united, it's usually over our mutual hatred of one thing or another, rather than our love of something. </p><p>Maybe we should keep that in mind as we get together with our families, friends, colleagues and complete strangers to watch the game this Sunday, as football fans, and especially as Americans. </p><p>Enjoy the game.</p><p>And go Bears!</p><p>Oh wait a minute...</p><p> </p><p>CODA</p><p><b><span style="color: red;">*</span></b>That 2018-19 season was the Chicago Bears' last winning season to date. Being a Chicago sports fan, and having unfortunately passed that trait on to my son, we both happen to know a little something about agony.</p><p><br /></p><p>POSTSCRIPT</p><p><span style="color: #cc0000;">**</span>Well it was a great game, perhaps a classic, at least after halftime.<span style="color: #cc0000;"> </span>The Kansas City Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers, 25-22 in overtime in Super Bowl LVIII. Once again, a kicker's miscue factored into the result as Jake Moody of the 49ers missed a one-point conversion after his team scored a touchdown to take the lead with two minutes left in regulation. Had the kick been successful, SF would have been up 4 points meaning the Chiefs would have had to score a touchdown to get back into the game. Instead, they only needed a field goal to tie and force overtime, which they did. </p><p>It could be argued that the KC offense as they say, was running on all eight cylinders by the end of the game, and could have scored a touchdown if they needed one. Moody's attempt was also blocked. Still, I bet he didn't sleep well last night, and will probably relive that moment at least until he gets back onto the field next season. <br /></p><p>Such is the life of a kicker. <br /></p><p></p>James Iskahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219990004487304003noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5271409126833086486.post-30153503039116220012024-01-28T21:51:00.004-06:002024-01-29T12:59:10.931-06:00Gotcha! Then and Now Part II<blockquote><i>Members are reminded to abide by decorum of the House.</i></blockquote><p>That little bit of irony was brought to us last year by none other than the queen of decorous behavior herself, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who while temporarily presiding over a session of the House of Representatives, admonished her colleagues to remain quiet during a speech. Her remark led to an outburst of laughter from the Democrats in the chamber, and no doubt several muffled guffaws from her fellow Republicans as well. You may remember it was Greene along with her partner in chaos Lauren Boebert who loudly heckled the President of the United States, interrupting his State of the Union Address last year, calling him a liar and chanting "Build the Wall!"</p><p>In the previous post I brought up how times have changed, politically speaking, in my life. When I was a child in the early sixties, there was anger and divisiveness among Americans to be sure. But the political divide among Americans today is perhaps at its greatest, most impervious point since the Civil War. Consider this: from a recent Economist/YouGov Poll, 38 percent of Americans responded they would not approve of one of their children marrying a member of a different political party. In 1960, that number was only about 4 percent, which also happens to be the percentage of current marriages between a Republican and a Democrat. </p><p>Perhaps this explains why the deep-down respect Americans once had for the institutions of this country spelled out in the U.S. Constitution that made certain behavior, such as that of Greene and Bobert out of bounds, is sadly a thing of the past. </p><p>All of that was thrown out the window during my life as a pall of cynicism, distrust and even outright hatred of fellow Americans with different opinions, has replaced the respect for those institutions meant to bring us all together.</p><p>That's not to say that as a society we don't respect anything anymore. I also pointed out in the post certain issues that are held sacred to many of us today such as equal rights for women. That in particular was a fringe issue sixty years ago, barely considered at all and when it was, it received the same kind of response then, as MTG calling for decorum on the floor of the House does now.</p><p>I guess we have to take the good with the bad.</p><p>Still, I have to say, where has all the decorum gone? </p><p>The inspiration for this duo of posts was two recent incidents where public figures got into hot water over their inadequate responses to what could be considered "gotcha questions", that is to say, inquiries that are designed by the questioner specifically to discredit the respondent.</p><p>Many sources regard one of the first such questions directed at a public figure, thereby launching the era of the gotcha question, to be the one I mentioned in the previous post where in 1992 President George H.W. Bush was asked if he ever had an extra-marital affair. Such a question of a sitting president would have been unthinkable before.</p><p>We haven't looked back since. </p><p>Neither of the two gotcha questions I speak of were asked by members of the press. One was made by a congressperson at a congressional hearing, the other by a private citizen. I'll start with that one.</p><p>A few weeks ago at a public forum in New Hampshire, Nikky Haley, a candidate for the Republican nomination for president, was asked the following: </p><p></p><blockquote><p><i>What caused the Civil War?</i></p></blockquote><p>Haley responded ironically:</p><p><i>Now don't come with an easy question or anything...</i><br /></p><p>Unless you're a Republican candidate for president from South Carolina (where the first shots of the Civil War were fired) as Haley is, this is not a difficult, let alone a gotcha question. It's not like asking for example, what caused World War I. </p><p>No matter how much the good folks south of the Mason-Dixon Line want to claim that the causes for the American Civil War were complex, it is not a hard question at all, and indeed the question is possible to answer in one word:</p><p>Slavery.</p><p>After her comment about the difficulty of the question, Haley went into a familiar talking point saying the Civil War was:</p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>basically [about] how the government was going to run [and] the freedoms of what people could and couldn’t do.</i></blockquote><p></p><p>She did not mention slavery as a contributing factor to the Civil War. </p><p>Nikky Haley knows better. Unfortunately, many of her constituents whose votes she's depending upon in order to win the Republican nomination, are those folks in Dixie, many of whom don't take too kindly to folks upsetting the apple cart by trashing the Confederacy and making claims that what they learned all their lives in school is a misrepresentation of history. </p><p>So for Haley this was a question with no good answer, a classic gotcha question. Had she answered honestly that yes, the Civil War WAS about state's rights and that the right they were fighting for was the right to own people, she may have just as well thrown in the towel as she would have certainly lost any momentum she might have had in the Southern primaries, especially the one in her home state whose primary takes place on February 24th. </p><p>Instead, she followed the line of the <b>Cult of the Lost Cause</b>, the movement that took place in the post-reconstruction period in the south, where among other things, history was re-written to paint a rosier picture of the Confederacy. It was no doubt what she was taught as a young person in South Carolina herself and that line of reasoning probably served her well as a Southern politician, until that fateful evening in New Hampshire.</p><p></p><p>The questioner followed up by mentioning his surprise at her omission of slavery.</p><p>At that point Haley threw gasoline on the fire by defiantly responding:</p><p></p><blockquote><p><i>What do you want me to say about slavery?</i></p><p></p></blockquote><p>To which the questioner said triumphantly: "Thank you, you've answered my question." </p><p>Ouch.</p><p>Nikky Haley is a consummate politician which is perhaps her biggest weakness. In a previous post I wrote about her tendency to speak out of both sides of her mouth, taking the most convenient path depending upon whom she is trying to reach. That makes it difficult to know exactly where she stands on the issues.</p><p>Her grievous omission in New Hampshire probably won't be much of a factor in her unlikely bid to become this year's Republican nominee for president, but it will come back to haunt her if she ever finds herself on a national ticket, either as candidate for president or vice president.</p><p>It's hard to know the motivation for asking a presidential candidate what has to be considered an off-the-wall question about a historical event that was settled 159 years ago. On the other hand, the reaction to Haley's gaffe proves one thing, we're still fighting that war to this day, which makes the question quite relevant. </p><p>Well played Mr. Private Citizen. </p><p>By contrast, there is no question about the motivation of U.S. Representative Elise Stefanik's classic gotcha question to the presidents of three major American universities at a congressional hearing looking into antisemitism at American universities, as illustrated by rallies that took place in the days following the Hamas attack on Israel this past October 7.</p><p>Similar rallies across the planet celebrating that attack as a legitimate act of protest, drew the ire of every reasonable citizen of the world who was paying attention, as their timing immediately following a despicable act of brutal terrorism, quite reasonably called Israel's 9/11, displayed (quoting myself here) remarkable "heartlessness, ignorance, stupidity and yes, antisemitism."</p><p>Many of these rallies took place on American campuses and while protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, nothing in that cherished document protects them or their participants from being criticized which sadly, few university presidents chose to do in the ensuing days.</p><p>In their defense I'd say that the October 7th terrorist attack took nearly the entire world by surprise, so the lack of preparation to deal with the reaction to it, regrettable as it was in a way, understandable.</p><p>Somewhat less understandable was the lack of preparation of the three presidents, Claudine Gay of Harvard, Liz Magill of the University of Pennsylvania, and Sally Kornbluth of MIT, when it came to answering what they had to know would be tough, politically charged questions at the congressional hearing in December, two months after the attack. </p><p>Here's the gotcha question Stefanik posed to each of them, demanding a yes or no answer:</p><i>Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate [your school’s] rules on bullying and harassment?<br /></i><br /><div>Like the question about the Civil War, on the surface this shouldn't be too difficult to answer. After all, American universities tend to bend over backwards in protecting their students' rights to not be harassed, bullied or just made to feel uncomfortable. It's obvious that Jewish students would feel harassed when confronted by a group demanding that they, their relatives, and every person on earth who identifies with the same ethno-religious group as they do, should be exterminated. Therefore, the answer to this question, if the universities in question are truly honest about protecting students' "safe spaces", should be an unqualified yes.</div><div><br /></div><div>But here's where that tricky little thing called the First Amendment gets in the way. Hate speech, which is really what Stefanik is referring to here, reprehensible as it is, is protected by the Constitution, so long as it doesn't represent a direct threat to someone. This is something that every school administrator understands and that is why the three university presidents equivocated when answering the question. "It depends" they all said in one way or other. </div><div><br /></div><div>Elise Stefanik, herself a Harvard alumna also understands this and knew exactly how the three would have to respond. She phrased her hypothetical question in as vague terms as possible so that it could cover, depending upon one's point of view, anything from Nazi skinheads carrying baseball bats while chanting "all Jews must die", to a group of students wearing Keffiyehs, chanting "Free Palestine." </div><div><br /></div><div>Understanding that the job of an administrator is to consider the minutiae of everything that comes her way along with the big picture, Stefanik preaching to the masses looking only to the convenient sound bite, set a trap for the three, into which they all fell.</div><div><br /></div><div>Despite the prepared statements of Gay, Magill and Kornbluth on the evils of anti-Semitism, (excerpts of which can be found below), and their commitment to eradicate it and all other forms of racial and ethnic hatred at their institutions, all the general public heard was their failure to put calling for the genocide of Jews at least up there with, (borrowing a line from Sam Harris), other "crimes students at college campuses lose sleep about such as cultural appropriation and using the wrong pronoun."</div><div><br /></div><div>Elise Stefanik may or may not be sincere in her concern about antisemitism, I have no idea. But as a newly minted MAGA culture warrior on the short list of candidates as Donald Trump's running mate in the upcoming election, she made no bones about the fact that she was gunning for these three administrators who represent in the minds of the Americans she's trying to connect with, the woke, elite enemy who must be put down at all costs. </div><div><br /></div><div>Shortly after her testimony to the Congressional Committee and the evisceration she received for her response to Stefanik's line of questioning, Liz Magill stepped down as the President of Penn. Responding to that, Stefanik commented on social media: "That's one down and two to go."</div><div><br /></div><div>Meanwhile up in Cambridge, the Harvard Community as well as the university's governing board the Harvard Corporation, threw their support behind Claudine Gay until reports of sloppy research work in her past became public. Facing tremendous pressure and harassment, Dr. Gay stepped down shortly thereafter. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/02/us/elise-stefanik-claudine-gay-harvard-reaction.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Annie Karmi of the New York Times</span></b></a>, wrote that Stefanik, taking full credit for the administrator's demise, took a "victory lap" after Gay's resignation.</div><div><br /></div><div>So far Stefanik has been denied the opportunity of dancing on the professional grave of Sally Kornbluth who remains president of MIT. Perhaps Stefanik's claim that Kornbluth is an antisemite has fallen upon deaf ears since Kornbluth is Jewish while Stefanik is not.</div><div><br /></div><div>Crazy world we live in, no?</div><div><br /></div><div>The good news in all of this is that the principle actors of this story with the exception of the guy who asked the Civil War question, are all women of tremendous influence, something that would have been unthinkable 60 years ago. </div><div><br /></div><div>Ever since I was a child, I've been told that the world would be a much better place if women were in charge. That always comforted me as the writing had been on the wall that women would be gaining more and more influence as time went on.</div><div><br /></div><div>The bad news is that despite women of influence being eminently capable of leadership, strength, wisdom and insight, they are also just as capable of messing things up as men.</div><div><br /></div><div>I guess that's what equality is all about. </div><div><br /></div><div>Happy 2024.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>CODA: </div><div><br /></div><div>It would be a grave injustice for the three university presidents to be remembered primarily for the soundbites of their responses to a question designed specifically to discredit them. </div><div><br /></div><div>What follows are excerpts from each of the prepared statements of Claudine Gay, Liz Magill and Sally Kornbluth that were read before the House committee's hearing on antisemitism on December 5, 2023. </div><div><br /></div><div>Claudine Gay:</div><blockquote><i>The free exchange of ideas is the foundation upon which Harvard is built, and safety and well-being are the prerequisites for engagement in our community. Without both of these things, our teaching and research mission founder. In the past two months, our bedrock commitments have guided our efforts. We have increased security measures, expanded reporting channels, and augmented counseling, mental health and support services.<br /><br />We have reiterated that speech that incites violence threatens safety or violates Harvard’s policies against bullying and harassment is unacceptable. We have made it clear that any behaviors that disrupt our teaching and research efforts will not be tolerated, and where these lines have been crossed, we have taken action.<br /><br />We have drawn on our academic expertise to create learning opportunities for our campus community. We have begun examinations of the ways in which anti-Semitism and other forms of hate manifest at Harvard and in American society. We have also repeatedly made clear that we at Harvard reject antisemitism and denounce any trace of it on our campus or within our community.<br /><br />Antisemitism is a symptom of ignorance, and the cure for ignorance is knowledge. Harvard must model what it means to preserve free expression, while combating prejudice and preserving the security of our community. We are undertaking that hard, long term work with the attention and intensity it requires.</i></blockquote><p>Liz Magill:</p><blockquote><i>To ensure that our Jewish students have a direct channel to share their experiences with me, I’ve created a student advisory group on the student experience. Today’s hearing is focused on antisemitism and its direct impact on the Jewish community, but history teaches us that where antisemitism goes unchecked, other forms of hate spread, and ultimately can threaten democracy.<br /><br />We are seeing a rise in our society in harassment, intimidation, and threats toward individuals based on their identity as Muslim, Palestinian, or Arab. At Penn, we are investigating all these allegations for members of our community and providing resources to support individuals experiencing threats, online harassment, and doxing.<br /><br />We will continue to deploy all the necessary resources to support any member of the community experiencing hate. As president, I am committed to a safe, secure, and supportive educational environment so that our academic mission can thrive. It is crucial that ideas are exchanged and diverse viewpoints are debated.</i></blockquote><p> Sally Kornbluth:</p><blockquote><i>I strongly believe that there is a difference — between what we can say to each other. That is what we have a right to say and what we should say as members of one community. Yet as president of MIT, in addition to my duties to keep the campus safe and to maintain the functioning of this national asset, I must at the same time ensure that we protect speech and viewpoint diversity for everyone.<br /><br />This is in keeping with the Institute’s principles on free expression. Meeting those three goals is challenging and the results can be terribly uncomfortable, but it is essential to how we operate in the United States. Those who want us to shut down protest language are in effect arguing for a speech code.<br /><br />But in practice, speech codes do not work. Problematic speech needs to be countered with other speech and with education. And we are doing that. However, the right to free speech does not extend to harassment, discrimination or incitement to violence in our community. MIT policies are clear on this. To keep the campus functioning, we also have policies to regulate the time, manner and place of demonstrations.</i></blockquote>James Iskahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219990004487304003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5271409126833086486.post-35190763851684731552024-01-28T17:14:00.006-06:002024-01-28T22:02:09.168-06:00Then and Now: Part I<p>Several years ago when I commemorated the passing of <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://jamesiska.blogspot.com/search?q=steve+jobs" target="_blank">Steve Jobs</a></span></b> and his career that helped change the world, I contemplated my grandmother's life and many of the changes she experienced during the first nine decades of the twentieth century.</p><p>I focused on the earth-shattering innovations she witnessed, perhaps the most obvious being the fact that she was alive when the Wright Brothers made their first flight in 1903, but wouldn't have known about it for at least four years when mention of it finally was published in the newspapers. Sixty years later, she was still very much alive when we watched together as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon, live on TV.</p><p>Now consider this: when my grandmother was born, much of the world was still under the dominion of a handful of imperial powers. In the year of her birth, Spain and Great Britain could both legitimately claim the sun never set upon their empires. It just so happened in that very year, 1898, Spain would lose its claim as the last remnants of its once vast empire, the Philippines and Cuba would be lost to them forever. 1898 continues to be a year of infamy to many Spaniards. In fact, "well it's not so bad, at least you didn't lose Cuba" is still a popular message of consolation in Spain.</p><p>After two world wars, the two-thousand-year-old world order of imperial domination would come to an end and national self-determination, or at least the desire for it, would take its place. We have a globe at home that was manufactured when my grandmother was in her forties. The names of regions printed on that globe, unrecognizable to those today with little concept of history attest to that fact, as does the omission of familiar place names such as Nigeria, Kenya, Pakistan, Iraq, Russia, and of course, Israel.</p><p>I think it's fair to say the world my grandmother left in the 1980s was unrecognizable from the world she entered in the 1898. </p><p>The world didn't change as drastically for me, although things are considerably different since I came on the scene in 1958.</p><p>I was reminded of this after watching a program called "Thank You Mr. President" which features excerpts from some of the sixty-five presidential news conferences conducted during the John F. Kennedy administration. </p><p>That number alone attests to the changing times as Kennedy, in his nearly three years as president, <a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/presidential-news-conferences." target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">participated in an average of 22.9 news conferences</span></b></a> per year while the current president Joe Biden's number is less than half that, 11.3. Only Richard Nixon's and Ronald Reagan's number of annual press conferences, 7 and 5.8 respectively are lower for all the presidents since Calvin Coolidge. </p><p>The "modern" news conference where a president meets in a formal setting with members of the press which is broadcast to the public live on television, began during the administration of Kennedy's predecessor, Dwight D. Eisenhower. But I think it's fair to say that Kennedy raised the event to an art form with his charm and quick wit, his wealth of historic and cultural knowledge, and his ability to think on his feet. </p><p>However, Kennedy's job was made easier compared to that of his successors by the tacit limits placed upon the reporters. There is no question that the public's attitude toward the office of President of the United States, and especially to the person who holds that job has changed drastically in the past sixty years. Like all presidents, JFK had his detractors, but in his time, there was enough respect for the office to mean that certain questions were off limits. </p><p>Today, after his tragic demise, Kennedy in some circles is best remembered for the many indiscretions in his personal life. These were not unknown by members of the press during his presidency, but publicly disclosing them would have meant professional suicide as the public did not have the voracious appetite we have today for salacious information on the private lives of public figures. More importantly, an indiscreet journalist would lose his or her most valuable asset, access to the president. </p><p>That was no longer the case some thirty years later when at a presidential news conference, a CNN reporter asked then President George H.W. Bush flat out if he ever had an extramarital affair. By then, after the public disillusionment and cynicism surrounding the government's handling of the Vietnam War, Watergate, the Iran-Contra affair and numerous other issues, nothing was considered off limits anymore. Bush's indignant response to the question only fueled suspicions which may have played a part in his losing re-election in 1992 to Bill Clinton, himself no stranger to personal indiscretions. </p><p>Attitudes about the office of POTUS barely scratch the surface of the differences between then and now as illustrated by the Kennedy news conferences. </p><p>As one of the first prominent women journalists on the national scene including her stint as a World War II correspondent, <b>May Craig</b> was a true pioneer in the struggle for equal rights for women. You can read about Miss Craig <a href="https://newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/may-craig-maines-tough-lobster-newswoman/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b>here</b></span></a>: </p><p>In a time when the cause for women's rights was a back burner issue at best, Craig often found herself at odds with the most powerful men in the country including presidents, who while respecting her credentials, did their best to downplay her concerns. </p><p>If you go to YouTube and type in "the wit of JFK", you will find dozens of videos featuring humorous responses from the 35th president during his 65 news conferences. Inevitably in each video there will be at least one appearance by May Craig addressing her concerns about women's issues, among others in the midst of a barrage of questions from male reporters about other "pressing" issues of the day such as nuclear weapons, the economy, the Cold War, segregation and Civil Rights.</p><p>Here's one of Miss Craig's questions verbatim, one that could easily be asked today:</p><p><i>The platform of the Democratic Party in which you ran promised to work for equal rights for women including equal pay to wipe out job opportunity discriminations. Now, you have made efforts on behalf of others, what have you done for the women according to the promises of the platform?</i></p><p>To which the president responded without missing a beat:</p><p>"Well, I'm sure we haven't done enough and uh..." </p><p>That drew a roar of laughter from the predominantly male press corps. When the guffaws subsided, Kennedy assured Miss Craig that he was completely in favor of equal pay for equal work and that we ought to do better, adding sardonically: "..."and I'm glad you reminded me of it Miss Craig."</p><p>Which drew another round of laughter.</p><p>Imagine a male politician today with the exception of one, so blithely dismissing the rights of one half of the population.</p><p>As I said, times have changed, and not all for the worse.</p><p>Public officials in a democracy should be held accountable and taken to task by a vigilant press asking at times, difficult questions.</p><p>Up to a point that is. </p><p><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b><a href="http://jamesiska.blogspot.com/2024/01/then-and-now-gotcha.html" target="_blank">To be continued...</a></b></span></p>James Iskahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219990004487304003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5271409126833086486.post-68382644112743520522023-12-31T19:44:00.012-06:002024-01-01T13:51:37.411-06:00Talking Point Number Three: Islamophobia<p>As long as I could remember, my mother dreamed of visiting Greece. While celebrating Christmas Eve 1994 at my parents' home shortly after her retirement, I opened a small package with my name on it under the tree. Inside was a ticket for an Aegean Cruise which was to be spent with my parents. Already in my thirties, I was between relationships and feeling particularly alone at the time, so it was the perfect moment for such a trip. "Maybe you'll meet someone" my mother suggested.</p><p>The trip took place in spring of the following year. It began in Athens, a city fascinating for its antiquities, less so for its more contemporary aspects. We spent a few days there before embarking on the cruise. It so happened there was a strike of dock workers at the port of Piraeus where we were scheduled to board the ship, aptly named the Marco Polo. That strike proved fortunate as the travel company arranged for us to meet up with the ship farther down the coast enabling us to visit more of mainland Greece including the ruins of the city of Corinth whose first century Church was the recipient of a series of letters from Saint Paul which would become part of the New Testament. </p><p>Close by we boarded the ship which took us first to the picture postcard islands of Mykonos (famous for its windmills) and Santorini, before sailing to more substantial places, first south to Heraklion, the capital of Crete. There we visited the most ancient site of our trip, the Bronze Age Palace of Knossos, center of the ancient Minoan Civilization. From there we sailed east to the island of Rhodes where my mom and I took an excursion to the city of Lindos, featuring its own city in the air (Acropolis), its magnificence in my estimation anyway, eclipsing the more famous one in Athens. </p><p>The following day was spent entirely at sea with a sail-by (if there is such a term) of the island of Patmos where legend has it, the Apostle John wrote the Book of Revelation, the last book of the Christian Bible. </p><p>Had our trip ended there, it would have been a smashing success. But in retrospect it was just getting started. We were headed for Turkey.</p><p>One of our stops on the western coast of Turkey was the city of Çanakkale,<span face="Roboto, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-size: 16px;"> </span>strategically located at the entrance to the Dardanelles (also known as the Straight of Gallipoli for you WWI buffs), the narrow inlet that connects the Aegean to the Sea of Marmara, then via the Bosporus which bisects the city of Istanbul, the Black Sea. About one half hour from Çanakkale sit the ruins of the ancient city of Troy. </p><p>With that visit in mind, to get into the spirit of the trip, I bought along a copy of the <i>Odyssey </i>to read during our time at sea. As is often the fate of good intentions however, there were far too many distractions to seriously consider Homer's epic poem: attending to my father's fragile health, the result of his over-exposure to the Aegean sun, thoughts of my own sad state of affairs back home, and perhaps most of all the female members of the ship's staff, sunbathing topless on the top deck of the ship. </p><p>My own twentieth century Odyssey, complete with the semi-naked sirens, ended up in Istanbul, the most breath-takingly beautiful, exhilarating, fascinating, complicated, exhausting, frustrating and magnificent place I've ever visited.</p><p>But that's a story for another day and besides, I'm way off track of the subject at hand.</p><p>I bring this up because of all the great experiences of our trip, there is one thing that has stuck in my head perhaps more than anything else with the exception of our time in Istanbul. It was a comment made by our tour guide in Kuşadası, Turkey en route to the location of another place that plays a key role in the history of Christianity, the city of Ephesus. Our guide was a Turk about my age who in addition to his engaging personality and encyclopedic knowledge of the material he presented to us, had a great command of colloquial English. As this was our first port-of-call in Turkey he took it upon himself to introduce us to the Turkish nation, its culture, its history (selected parts of it anyway), its language, and the predominant religion of its people, Islam. Then he made the comment I will always remember. He said emphatically:</p><p>"We are Turks, NOT Arabs."</p><p>That little tidbit was not news to me nor I'm guessing was it news to most of our fellow travelers, although I could be wrong. We Americans, who constituted the majority of our group, have a deserved reputation for being remarkably ignorant of the world outside our borders, as has been made quite obvious since the events of this past October 7, and I'm sure our guide was aware of that.</p><p>Of course, I can't read his mind nearly thirty years after the fact, but by the way he made that comment, not as an aside but rather as a talking point, I couldn't help but think what he was really saying to us was this:</p><p>"We are not terrorists."</p><p>For a little context, remember this was 1995, a little more than six years before the mother-of-all terrorist attacks that took place on September 11, 2001. By 1995, acts of terrorism were commonplace all around the world and their perpetrators were a varied lot with a diverse set of axes to grind. The terms jihad, al-Qaeda and Islamophobia were not yet household words in the non-Muslim world in 1995 and international terrorism was far from the exclusive domain of Arab-Islamic extremists, as it remains today.</p><p>Yet they were up there.</p><p>Shortly before our trip, the deadliest act of terrorism (at the time) on American soil, the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building happened in Oklahoma City. 168 people lost their lives and hundreds more were injured. I distinctly remember early speculation on who were the perps. Al-Qaeda, who had already committed several acts of terrorism directed at Americans overseas was high on the list. Of course that was wrong, the barbarous act in Oklahoma was committed by home grown American ultra-right-wing extremist terrorists.</p><p>In my last post I mentioned that there is a problem with the term Islamophobia. It was probably coined in the 1920s but came into common usage sometime in the 1990s, resurrected some say by Islamists as a parallel term to antisemitism, that is, the distrust and hatred of Jewish people. Beyond describing hatred of Muslims, in a cynical sense this word could be used to deflect criticism of Islam, equating the criticism of the religion with racism, much as the charge of antisemitism is sometimes used to deflect criticism of Israel.</p><p>Let me say this: hatred directed at Muslim people is real and like antisemitism, it is a scourge on humanity. There should just be a better word for it.</p><p>The problem with the term "Islamophobia" is that it does not, at least in its etymological sense, mean the hatred of a people as does the word antisemitism *, but rather the fear of a religion.</p><p>As our friend the Turkish tour guide pointed out, Islam is not confined to a single ethnicity or race. Because it is a missionary faith like Christianity, anyone can be a Muslim.</p><p>Given that, it should be obvious that the fear of a particular religion is not the same as the hatred of a people. The next question then should be this, can it be reasonable to fear a religion?</p><p>Well, when someone invokes the name of God before blowing him or herself up along with several innocent people on a bus, or intentionally flying an airplane into a skyscraper filled with thousands, or raping, torturing and butchering men women and children in their homes as they go about their daily lives, I'd say, yes, it is reasonable to fear that.</p><p>It is argued that all of these acts when done in the name of Islam, are a perversion of the religion, that Islam actually condemns in no uncertain terms the killing of innocent people. I have argued that myself in this space. </p><p>Unfortunately like all religious dogma, there are loopholes. </p><p>Some, such as the contemporary atheist philosopher and popular commentator <b>Sam Harris</b>, would say there are more such loopholes in Islam than in other contemporary religions, making it particularly dangerous. As I am far from an expert on Islam, I am not in any position to say if that is true.</p><p>What I do feel qualified to discuss is my own faith tradition, Christianity, specifically that of the Roman Catholic Church.</p><p>One obvious loophole in Catholicism is perhaps its most beautiful attribute, the spirit of forgiveness raised to an act of God through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, otherwise known as Confession. By openly revealing our sins we humble ourselves before God (through the intervention of a priest) and come to terms with the fact that yet another thing that binds us humans together is that we all make mistakes; we all fall short of the perfection of God. Most important of all, while forgiving our sins, God calls upon us to "forgive those who transgress against us". </p><p>For me, one of the most powerful passages of the New Testament concerns forgiveness:</p><div class="verse visible" style="text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; visibility: visible;"><p style="margin-top: -1em;"><br /><i></i></p><blockquote><p style="margin-top: -1em;"><i>Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.</i></p><p style="margin-top: -1em;"><i><br /></i></p><p style="margin-top: -1em;">Matthew 18:18</p></blockquote><p style="margin-top: -1em;"><br /></p><p style="margin-top: -1em;">In other words, we are bound by our grudges big and small that we carry around through life like millstones around our necks. Forgiveness unbinds us of the millstone. Forgive, and we will be free of the burden, and can be forgiven ourselves.</p><p style="margin-top: -1em;"><br /></p><p style="margin-top: -1em;">This is one of the central tenets of Christianity.</p><p style="margin-top: -1em;"><br /></p><p style="margin-top: -1em;">However, in practice, like so many aspects of Catholic dogma, confession long ago came to be a ritual whose spirit got lost somewhere along the way. For many Catholics, reconciliation is all about one's own redemption while forgetting all that other boring stuff. Confession to many, is like a get out of jail free card in Monopoly, justifying bad actions in advance, knowing full well that a trip to the confessional and the penance of few Hail Marys will make everything AOK.</p><p style="margin-top: -1em;"><br /></p><p style="margin-top: -1em;">Obviously, that's not how it was intended to work. </p><p style="margin-top: -1em;"><br /></p><p style="margin-top: -1em;">Yet for innumerable Catholics from little old ladies picking flowers without permission to professional hitmen, from priests abusing children to their bishops who swept their actions under the rug, sins big, small and enormous are intentionally committed by Catholics with the full expectation that God has their back, so long as they jump through the right hoops.</p><p style="margin-top: -1em;"><br /></p><p style="margin-top: -1em;">So much for good intentions.</p><p style="margin-top: -1em;"><br /></p><p style="margin-top: -1em;">Now anyone with a shred of history in their head, knows that the sins of the Roman Catholic Church are profound and numerous. The Crusades, the Inquisition, need I say more? I could go on all day but I won't. If there ever was a religion worthy of inciting fear, it would be the one in which I am a member.</p></div><p>I'm not certain how much the two acts of the Church I just mentioned were inspired by Christian scripture, or simply the acting out of tribal instincts in response to socio/political/economic events of the day, while using a cut and paste version of scripture to justify them. I suspect more the latter than the former. My guess is that Sam Harris would agree when he compares Christianity favorably to Islam, (remember he's an atheist so he rejects both). When Harris compares the two faiths as he has done recently, he doesn't point out those quite obvious examples of brutality committed in the name of Christ. Instead, Harris argues that morally speaking, we in the West (whatever that entails), as a civilization have come a long way since the days of the Crusades, and that the East has a lot of catching up to do. This, according to Harris, is a result of Islam holding them back. </p><p>Sam Harris is not alone in defying current political correctness by singling out Islam as a backwards force. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvkBlpfbFJM&t=17s" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Here is link to a video of a lecture</span></b></a> given by the popular astro-physicist <b>Neil deGrasse Tyson </b>introduced by Steven Weinberg, discussing the relationship between Islam and science.</p><p>I'm fairly certain that a vast number of people in the non-Muslim world, are not aware of the golden age of Islam of which Professor Tyson speaks. Coinciding with the Arab Empire, at the time the largest empire the world had ever known, it was a period of tremendous breakthroughs in human knowledge all brought to the world by Arab scholars, inventors, mathematicians, scientists, philosophers and other learned individuals. All this took place in what we in the West refer to as the "Dark Ages", a time when in Tyson's words, "the Europeans were busy disemboweling heretics". I might add that the Europeans at the same time, under the authority of the Church, were also busy burning books, attempting to destroy much of the accumulated knowledge of the world at the time, especially that written by pagans such as Plato and Aristotle, under the assumption that the only knowledge worth preserving was to be found in the Bible. </p><p>Meanwhile the Arabs were taking much of that knowledge and translating it into Arabic. Had they not, scores of works of ancient philosophy, science, medicine and mathematics, may have been lost forever. </p><p>And then it all stopped according to Tyson; scientific inquiry among Arabs ground to a halt somewhere in the 13th Century. He attributes this decline to one man, <b>Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali</b>. According to Tyson, al-Ghazali codified Islam, much in the same way that St. Augustine codified Christianity. Among the tenets that al-Ghazali came up with Tyson says, is that "mathematics is the work of the devil." </p><p>"Nothing good can come out of that philosophy" Tyson retorted.</p><p>Neil deGrasse Tyson has made a brilliant career of making complex scientific ideas accessible to the masses. I am a member of those masses. But simplification in order to explain an idea is not the same as dumbing something down in order to make a point, which he unfortunately does here. </p><p>Parts of his premise are correct, in the period between 750 and 1258 CE, corresponding to the years of the Arab Empire, or more accurately the <b>Abbasid Caliphate</b>, centered in Baghdad and extending from Spain through Persia, there was an explosion of ground-breaking contributions made by Arabs in the fields of science, medicine, philosophy and education. He is also correct about the decline of those contributions, (although not nearly as abrupt as he claims) at the end of that period and from which there has been no significant recovery.</p><p>And yes, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, was indeed a profoundly influential Muslim cleric. some say second only to Mohammad himself regarding his influence on the faith. But al-Ghazali was also a polymath: an intellectual, a scholar, mystic, philosopher as well as theologian. He was as much a part of the golden age of Islam as anyone, as well as being a great influence on many non-Muslim philosophers including <b>Maimonidies</b>, <b>Thomas Aquinas</b>, and <b>David Hume</b>. </p><p>Tyson states that al Ghazali taught people "how to be good Muslims", implying that to mean strict, unquestioning fealty to the Quran being the cornerstone of the faith, and that all earthly pursuits such as mathematics and science were not only fruitless but also contrary to the teachings of scripture. </p><p>This could not be further from the truth. Al Ghazali was a firm advocate of reason and critical thinking and judgement. He insisted that earthly pursuits like math and science, which he groups together with philosophy, were essential studies, not in conflict with matters of faith. Reading a bit of his work, you can judge for yourself:</p><blockquote><i>There are those things in which the philosophers believe, and which do not come into conflict with any religious principle. And, therefore, disagreement with the philosophers with respect to those things is not a necessary condition for the faith in the prophets and the apostles (may God bless them all). An example is their theory that the lunar eclipse occurs when the light of the Moon disappears as a consequence of the interposition of the Earth between the Moon and the Sun. ….<br /><br />We are not interested in refuting such theories either; for the refutation will serve no purpose. He who thinks that it is his religious duty to disbelieve such things is really unjust to religion, and weakens its cause. For these things have been established by astronomical and mathematical evidence which leaves no room for doubt. If you tell a man, who has studied these things— so that he has sifted all the data relating to them, and is, therefore, in a position to forecast when a lunar or a solar eclipse will take place: whether it will be total or partial; and how long it will last —that these things are contrary to religion, your assertion will shake his faith in religion, not in these things. Greater harm is done to religion by an immethodical helper than by an enemy whose actions, however hostile, are in his yet regular. For, as the proverb goes, a wise enemy is better than an ignorant friend.</i></blockquote><p>From <i>Tahāfut al-Falāsifa (Incoherence of the Philosophers)</i></p><div>In his thesis, Tyson gives little credence to the reasonable possibility that the decline of the scientific contributions of Arabs is likely to be attributable to the decline of their Empire after the fall of Baghdad to the Mongols (incidentally, ancestors of the modern-day Turks) in 1258, and the subsequent centuries of invasions by the Crusaders. Instead, he insists that the strict religion foisted upon the Muslim people by al-Ghazali is the sole culprit.</div><div><br /></div><div>Why? </div><div><br /></div><div>Well, al-Ghazali gets the last laugh on this one as he seems to have anticipated Neil deGrasse Tyson's comments by some nine centuries:</div><blockquote><i>The greatest thing in which the atheists rejoice is for the defender of religion to declare these [astronomical demonstrations] and their like are contrary to religion thus the path for refuting religion becomes easy if the likes [of this argument defending religion] are rendered a condition [for its truth].<br /></i></blockquote><p>Again, from <i>Tahāfut al-Falāsifa</i></p><p>As one commentator noted, had Tyson spent five minutes reading the Wikipedia entry on al Ghazali, it "could have prevented him from completely misquoting Al Ghazali and shamelessly misrepresenting history." </p><div>Indeed.</div><div><br /></div><div>Yet even the staunchest defenders of Islam are at a loss to fully explain why there was never a rekindling of the glory days of scientific inquiry in the Arab and more broadly, the Muslim world since the twelfth century.</div><div><br /></div><div>And the same people are even more at a loss to explain the horrific acts committed in the name of Allah.</div><div><br /></div><div>But in this respect at least, Muslims are not alone in lamenting the fact that some of their brothers and sisters in faith have used their sacred scripture to justify abhorrent acts. </div><div><br /></div><div>Here is what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Israeli people shortly after the 10/7 Hamas attacks in their country:</div><blockquote><i>You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible.</i><div></div></blockquote><div>Amalek, or the Amalekites, were enemies of the nation of Israel from biblical times. </div><div><br /></div><div>This is from the First book of Samuel, Chapter 15:</div><blockquote><i>Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he ambushed him on the way when he came up from Egypt. Now go and attack Amalek, and <b>utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.</b>’ </i></blockquote><div>The God of the Old Testament didn't fool around.<br /><br />It's hard to look at Israel's response in Gaza after the 10/7 attacks and not think this is what Netanyahu had in mind. <br /><br />But for my money, historically speaking, the most devastating line of scripture found in any of the sacred texts of all three of the Abrahamic religions combined, (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) is found in the same Gospel of Matthew of the New Testament that I quoted from above.</div><div><blockquote style="display: inline; line-height: normal; position: relative; top: auto; vertical-align: text-top;"><br />You probably know the story. Jesus has been brought to the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate by the people of Jerusalem who insist he be punished for blasphemy for claiming he was the Son of God, and for other stuff that pissed them off. Pilate, the story goes, was warned by his wife to spare the life of Jesus because she had a troubling dream about him the night before. Despite his efforts to grant his wife's wishes, the last thing Pilate needed was an uprising on his hands, so he gave in to the crowd but not before admonishing them and passing the responsibility of Jesus' fate on to them, literally "washing his hands" of the affair. Here is their response to him:<blockquote><i>Then answered all the people, and said, <b>'His blood be on us, and on our children.'</b></i></blockquote></blockquote></div><span class="versenum"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline; line-height: 2.4rem; min-width: 0px; position: relative; top: auto; vertical-align: text-top;">Matthew 27:25</p></span><div><br /><div>"The people" the writer of the Gospel is referring to here, are the Jews. There you have it, scriptural proof that the Jews killed Jesus, This is their confession. Not only are they condemning themselves, but their children as well, into eternity. Two millennia and counting worth of antisemitism along with all the pain, suffering and unspeakable horror that came from it, can be summed up in nine simple words. They are scriptural justification for hatred.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Take a deep breath to put all that into perspective. </div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, anyone who has ever taken those nine words to heart, and there have been many hundreds of millions throughout history, didn't bother with a couple other crucial verses in the same story, one taking place a few hours before, the other a few hours later in the narrative. </div><div><p>When the officials came to arrest Jesus, one of his disciples took his sword and cut off the ear of one of the officials. This is what follows:</p><blockquote><i>Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.<br /><br />Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?<br /><br />But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?</i></blockquote><div>Matthew 26:52-54</div><div><br /></div>If you are a Christian, you believe that the death and resurrection of Jesus are God's plan for the salvation of the world. That is why the day we commemorate Jesus' death is called "Good" Friday. Without Good Friday, there would be no Easter Sunday commemorating the central event of the faith.</div><div><br /></div><div>The people who sent Jesus to his death were merely actors in God's plot.</div><div><br /></div><div>And how are we to think of those people?</div><div><br /></div><div>For that we turn to another Gospel:</div><blockquote><i>And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left. <b>Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. </b></i><i>And they parted his raiment and cast lots.</i><br /></blockquote><p>Luke 23:34-35</p><p>There you have it, if Jesus himself is asking God for the forgiveness of the people who arrested him, spit at him, mocked him, beat him, nailed him to a tree to die then cast lots for his clothing, then who are <b>we </b>to condemn them?</p><p>This brings us to what I believe is the central question at hand, what comes first, scriptural verses that inspire hatred, or the hatred itself which becomes justified through a selected reading of scripture?</p><p>I would strongly advocate for the latter-- that hatred comes first. People who see religion only as a negative force in the world single out all the horrific acts that have taken place in the name of God, but are loath to point out the acts of good that come from religion. I've heard Sam Harris claim that you don't need religion in your life to be a good person, to which I agree. At the risk of sounding like a cliché, some of the best people I've known have been atheists. Conversely, I think it's obvious that you don't need religion to be a bad person either. Some of the gravest acts against humanity, especially in the last 150 years have been carried out without any religious pretext at all.</p><p>In defense of religion I will say this: fear and hatred are very natural human responses to adversity; they are self-defense mechanisms we inherited from our pre-historic ancestors. No, we don't need religion to teach us how to hate those who have done us wrong, real or imagined, we're all very capable of that on our own, thank you very much. </p><p>But what about virtues such as kindness, charity, patience, selflessness, justice and the "golden rule" which all faiths promote and aspire to?</p><p>These virtues do not come naturally, they need to be taught.</p><p>What about loving our enemies as Jesus commanded? </p><p>That idea is so outrageous, absurd and un-natural that despite all my doubts about whether God exists, it is the one thing that truly confirms my faith, simply because it's hard for me to believe that this command was made up by a mere mortal as it goes against every instinct of our earthly being. </p><p>Yet there it is.</p><div>Religion, like all human inventions (Artificial Intelligence immediately comes to mind), is a tool that can be put to good use and bad. Today being New Years Eve, it is customary to think of the people we have lost over the previous 364 days. The person I'm thinking about at the moment is <b>Rosalyn Carter</b>, who along with her husband the former president, spent the last half of her life in service, building homes with her own hands for the homeless. The Carters are examples of people who put their faith to good use. They are far from unique as there are people of all creeds in every corner of the planet who put their faith to good use in the service of others and help make the world a better place. </div><div><br /></div><div>Which makes me think of one of the humblest tools the Carters put into service in their work for Habitat for Humanity, the lowly hammer. </div><div><br /></div><div>In the right hands, that hammer can be used to build homes for the homeless and other wondrous things. </div><div><br /></div><div>In the wrong hands it can be used to bash somebody's head in.</div><div><br /></div><div>Religion is no different. </div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>CODA</div><div><br /></div><div>* There is a bit of a problem with the word antisemitism as well, as included in the Semitic peoples are Arabs. Yet the word is exclusively used to describe prejudice against Jewish people. </div><div><br /></div><div>** An even more demonstrable error in Neil deGrasse Tyson's lecture on Islam and science is his mention of a quote President George W. Bush made supposedly after the 9/11 attacks. Bush did say "Our God named the stars", loosely quoting Psalm 147:4, but he did not deliver those words after the terrorist attack, and certainly not as a means to compare and contrast Christians and Muslims as Tyson implies. </div><div><br /></div><div>Rather, Bush made the remark during a tribute to the seven astronauts killed in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003. The president in fact made it crystal clear after 9/11 that Muslims are as much a part of the fabric of American life as any other group and denounced in no uncertain terms the prejudice and hatred against them that followed the attack and continues to this day.<b> <a href="https://youtu.be/liudIJFg8UQ" target="_blank">Here is a link to a speech</a></b> the former president gave during a visit to the Islamic Centre in Washington, D.C., less than a week after the attack.</div><div><br /></div>James Iskahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219990004487304003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5271409126833086486.post-4145326356509598232023-12-09T11:26:00.013-06:002023-12-17T09:29:54.373-06:00Talking Point Number Two: Anti-Zionism = Antisemitism <p>This is a subject wrought with pain and strife, one that not being not Jewish, I probably have no business talking about. But that doesn't stop anybody else so why should I be different?</p><p>Like all forms of bigotry, intolerance and racism, <b>antisemitism </b>is a blight on humanity, even without considering one of the darkest moments of history, the Holocaust. I think blight is a good metaphor because the primary use of the word is to describe a disease. This is definition number one of blight from Merriam Webster:</p><blockquote><i>a disease or injury of plants marked by the formation of lesions, withering, and death of parts (such as leaves and tubers)</i></blockquote>First and foremost, racism of any kind is a disease of the human condition, but not an anomaly. We are a social animal, but also a tribal one. By nature, we are distrustful of members of other tribes, one of the survival mechanisms our early ancestors picked up along the way. However, humans not only survived but thrived primarily by our ability to learn. One thing the species <i>Homo sapiens</i> has learned over nearly ten thousand generations of our existence is that we can accomplish much more and suffer much less by cooperating with members of other tribes, rather than fighting them. Yet we haven't quite learned how to get over our primordial instincts to distrust and hate one other. Consequently, our inability to see each other as fellow human beings, rather than as members of different tribes, whether they are defined by race, ethnicity, faith, ideology or whatever, has resulted in countless lesions, withering and death, caused by fear and ignorance fueled by our primitive instincts. As we now have the technological ability to wipe out our entire species along with all the others on the planet, with the possible exception of those belonging to the order <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockroach" target="_blank"><i>Blattodia</i></a></span></b>, the blight of racism may prove fatal to us all.<div><br /></div><div>Antisemitism, the distrust and hatred of the Jewish people, has been a blight on humanity for thousands of years. It is particularly raw today because the effects of it including discrimination, oppression, segregation, ethnic cleansing, violence and genocide are still fresh in the memory of people still with us who lived through it not very long ago. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>And it has not subsided.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's been two months since the depravity of the Hamas attack on kibbutzim and a music festival in Israel just beyond the border with Gaza. 10/7 was the most devastating attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust. It came as a surprise to exactly no one that the Israeli government responded swiftly, resolutely, and brutally, leaving a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in its wake.</div><div> </div><div>In the two months of war following the atrocity, the same talking points come up again and again from supporters of both sides of Israeli/Palestinian conflict. One of these is the conflation or conversely the differentiation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism. Yesterday the U.S. Congress passed a resolution equating the two. The inspiration behind the resolution were the hundreds of rallies in the United States, several of them on college campuses in support of the Palestinian cause. Many of these demonstrations took place immediately after the 10/7 attacks with the protestors openly expressing their support for Hamas and for their actions on that dreadful day. <br /><div><br /></div><div>Let me say unequivocally that I was as appalled as anyone by people who should have known better, celebrating the torture, rape, kidnapping and butchering of innocent people, many of whom were on the same ideological side in regard to the Palestinian cause as the protestors. As guaranteed by the First Amendment, the protestors were within their rights. But their rights do not extend to immunity from being called out for their heartlessness, ignorance, stupidity and yes, antisemitism. In a televised presidential debate the other night, candidate Nikki Haley indirectly compared the demonstrators to the Ku Klux Klan. She is not off the mark. They should be ashamed of themselves. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Let me also say unequivocally that supporting the Palestinian cause in itself should not be equated with antisemitism. </div><div><br /></div><div>Neither should criticism of Israel. </div><div><br /></div><div>Most supporters of Israel are quick to point that out by the way, but I'm not 100 percent convinced they all believe it.</div><div><br /></div><div>So what's the deal with Zionism and what does it all mean today? Frankly I'm a bit confused. As I wrote in an earlier post, Zionism was the aspiration of a homeland for an oppressed and dispersed people, the Jews. It was a movement that had existed in different forms for several hundred years at least. </div><div><br /></div><div>Zionism became more than an aspiration when Great Britain during their mandate over Palestine between the two World Wars, declared its support of a homeland for the Jewish people in that land. And it became reality 75 years ago with the establishment of the State of Israel.</div><div><br /></div><div>With the aspiration becoming a reality, where does that leave Zionism and anti-Zionism today?</div><div><br /></div><div>Here's a statement I've heard practically my whole life, the entire time of which I've never known there to be no Israel: "I'm not against the Jewish people, I'm against Zionism."</div><div><br /></div><div>It is said that today, anti-Zionism is the denial of Israel's right to exist, an idea which plenty of groups advocate, and many more like Hamas are trying make a reality. That is precisely the implication of the catch phrase "from the river to the sea" which U.S. Congresswoman Rashida Talib was rightfully excoriated for using recently. But beyond the obvious antisemitic tone of that sentiment, when you think of it, isn't denying Israel like denying the United States' right to exist, or for that matter all the nations in the Americas, and many scattered throughout the world, whose "founders" conquered the land causing displacement, great suffering, and even death to the indigenous people of those places, much like the founding of Israel?</div><div><br /></div><div>If there ever was a quixotic enterprise, denying an established, sovereign nation it's right to exist is surely high on the list. Israel is here to stay, like it or not.</div><div><br /></div><div>The first person I heard make the comment above about Zionism was my father. I'm not sure he even knew what Zionism actually was, as I never heard him mention his opposition to the state of Israel. To my old man, Zionism was a nefarious movement that involved a conspiracy at the hands of the Jewish elite who had control of the world's banks, the press, popular culture and many other institutions that had a great influence on people's lives. The end goal of course was world domination. </div><div><br /></div><div>Politically as a child I was much more under the influence of my mother, so I always thought my dad's ideas were unique to him or at best, shared only by a few other kookie folks, until I learned they are commonly held, especially among my father's fellow Europeans. Not even the horrors of World War II could diminish them. Sure, others may not have been as blatant in public as my father was at home with his family, but there were always the telltale signs bringing up a certain group of people not mentioned by name, (but "you know who they are"), and conspiracies. Silly me but I didn't realize until fairly recently how prevalent those ideas were stateside until all the fuss about George Soros and his supposed Zionist plot to disrupt the American political system by changing its demographics, otherwise known as the great replacement conspiracy.</div><div><br /></div><div>This shit never grows old apparently.</div><div><br /></div><div>Let's face it, making the point of saying you're anti-Zionist but not antisemitic, is really just putting lipstick on a pig. If you feel the need to point out that you're not antisemitic, or any other kind of racist for that matter, you probably are. And you're in good company because none of us are truly immune from the blight of racism.</div><div><br /></div><div>So yes, in that sense, anti-Zionism and antisemitism go hand-in-hand. </div><div><br /></div><div>What about pro-Zionism today? To many, with the stated goals of Zionism already accomplished, the term refers not simply to the preservation and security of the State of Israel, but to the expansion of Jewish settlements into Palestinian territory, the continuation of Israeli occupation of the West Bank, and the treatment of the Palestinian people in Israel as second-class citizens, all of which has been condemned by much of the world as well as the United Nations.</div><div><br /></div><div>Is this condemnation antisemitic? </div><div><br /></div><div>What if a person thinks as I do that the ideal, perfect world solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is a one state solution, where Jews and Palestinians would live together in a State of Israel, all with the same rights and opportunities, as a true democratic republic? This would mean technically the end of Israel as an exclusively Jewish State, but not the end of it as a Jewish homeland. It would instead be a shared homeland. Does that make me an antisemite?</div><div><br /></div><div>Admittedly this one state solution is little more than a pipedream, one that has about as much chance of happening as pigs flying on the twelfth day of never. It would require a constitution (which Israel currently lacks), which while maintaining majority rule, unequivocally guarantees minority rights, in other words something like what we have in the United States. Even more important, it would require a population that's all on board with it.</div><div> </div><div>Aye, there's the rub. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>As we've seen lately in the United States, our democratic republic and Constitution, two of our most cherished institutions, are under attack in a country whose divisions are a mere speck compared to what they are in the Middle East. If democracy has a chance of collapsing here, think of its chances over there.</div><div><br /></div><div>I stated in an earlier post that I am neither on the side of the Israelis nor the Palestinians in this conflict but rather on the side of peace. Does that make me Islamophobic (an essential but misleading word as I'll point out in a subsequent post) as well as antisemitic?</div><div><br /></div><div>If it is, so be it.</div><div><br /></div><div>As we've seen, both Zionism and its antithesis anti-Zionism are highly charged and ambiguous terms, speaking to the past but having little practical relevance today. Just as the State of Israel is no longer an aspiration and is here to stay, so too are the Palestinian people. Maybe it's time to retire those terms and at the very least, keep our accusations of racism on both sides to a minimum. </div><div><br /></div><div>They are not helpful.</div><div><br /></div><div>While my father shared his European culture's prejudices as we saw above, he was fond of saying something that was a truism yet deeply profound, something in my heart of hearts I think he truly believed. I've mentioned these words time and again in this space, but they too never grow old:</div><div><i><blockquote>People are people. </blockquote></i></div><div>Despite my own prejudices, and there are more than I'd like to admit, I've tried my hardest to live by those words which I'll take to my grave. </div><div><div><div><p>They should serve to guide us all in this difficult, complicated world.</p></div></div></div></div>James Iskahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219990004487304003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5271409126833086486.post-14887312287135984592023-11-30T21:18:00.012-06:002023-12-02T19:42:48.063-06:00Who's the Guy?<p>My intention for this post was to take a brief respite from the serious (understatement of the year), news of the day. What after all could be less serious than the word "guy"? It's the very definition of casual non-commitment, a word describing someone not distinctive, but rather ordinary, mediocre and average. After all he's just a guy. </p><p>Little did I know there are people who take the subject of the contemporary uses of the word deadly serious. I'll get to that in a bit. </p><p>Like casual words or expressions in any language, its precise etymology is not one hundred percent certain, but the common explanation is that guy derives from a historical figure, <b>Guy Fawkes</b>. If you don't happen to be British, you still may have heard of him as he is ironically memorialized every year by the holiday bearing his name that takes place on November 5. Fawkes was a 17th Century English Roman Catholic mercenary who participated in a plan to assassinate King James I in order to restore a Catholic monarch to the British throne. </p><p>In the plan, not only was the king to be done away with, but so was the entire Parliament and the lion's share of British nobility. The deed was to be carried out by the detonation of 36 barrels of dynamite positioned in a room directly beneath the chamber of the House of Lords on the Fifth of November 1605, coinciding with the State opening of Parliament. This "Gunpowder Plot" was thwarted when Fawkes was discovered among the barrels of dynamite, ready to light the match.</p><p>As you can imagine, Fawkes and seven co-conspirators met ignominious ends, they were all sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered, the standard punishment for treason at the time. Their immortality was sealed however by the British government who decreed that the failure of the Gunpowder Plotters would be commemorated every year as a national day of Thanksgiving, which continues to this day.</p><p>The celebrations are more like American Fourth of July than our Thanksgiving, featuring rowdiness, fireworks and bonfires which consume life-size effigies of Guy Fawkes and any other unpopular figures of the day. The effigies became known as guys. Eventually the meaning of "guy" would expand to be used as a pejorative term referring to men of shall we say, less than stellar attributes. </p><p>The word guy made the Atlantic voyage to the New World where, shed of its original context, came to be used a generic term for men. That is to say, in our egalitarian society, you could either be a good guy or a bad guy. </p><p>But wait friends, there's more!!!</p><p>If you're a native English speaker learning your first foreign language, you've no doubt noticed several grammatical concepts in the new language that are well, foreign to you. You may even be tempted to believe that the language you're studying is a bit strange. It's only when you start learning a second and third foreign language when you realize that in fact, English is the peculiar language.<br /></p><p>Take for example the second person, personal pronoun. </p><p>Many languages use different pronouns depending upon whom you are speaking to. If you are addressing a friend, family member, or child, you most likely would be using the <b>familiar </b>pronoun. If not, you would address the person with the <b>formal </b>pronoun. The line between the two varies from culture to culture, adding extra confusion when learning a new language along with the different cultures where it is spoken.</p><p>Most languages distinguish between the second person <b>singular</b> and the second person <b>plural </b>. In other words, if you are addressing one person, you would use the singular pronoun. If you're addressing more than one person, you'd use the plural pronoun.</p><p>English does not have any of these distinctions; we have only one word that covers all the options, "you".<br /></p><p>Compare that to Spanish. In Spain, they have four words for you:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><div class="QmZWSe"><div class="DHcWmd"></div></div>tú - translation: you, singular, familiar.</li><li>usted - translation: you, singular, formal.</li><li>vosotros - translation: you, plural, familiar.</li><li>ustedes - translation: you, plural, formal.</li></ul><p></p><p>In Latin American Spanish, they've dropped vosotros so there is just one second person plural pronoun, ustedes, making life there a bit simpler, in that sense anyway.</p><p>Regardless, in Spanish and most languages of the world, there is no ambiguity between addressing one person, or a group of people. <br /></p><p>In English, we have to rely on context to distinguish between the singular and the plural you. We also have ways of speaking which distinguishes between formal and informal speech, usually by the use of certain words. <br /></p><p>Enter the word "guy". In American English, "guy," by making it plural and preceded with a "you" makes it function as a pronoun, sometimes. </p><p>In other words, "you guys" has become the go-to plural familiar second person pronoun, or if you prefer, the vosotros of American English.</p><p>Here's an example, if I were telling friends that I plan to accompany them to the store I might say:</p><p>Voy de compras con <b>vosotros </b>(in Spanish Spanish) = I'm going shopping with <b>you guys</b>. (in American English).<br /></p><p>"You guys" obviously is plural, and it's also informal, you probably wouldn't address strangers who are older than you as "you guys".</p><p>But wait a minute folks, you ain't heard nothin' yet!!!<br /></p><p>In the last God knows how many years, at least in this context, "you guys" has evolved to become gender-neutral. It can refer to males, females, or any combination of both, just like vosotros. </p><p>However the gender-neutral "guys" is used in another manner which differs from vosotros, that is, in greetings.</p><p>In English if you walked into a room filled with friends you might say informally: "Hey guys." whereas in Spanish you wouldn't say "Hola vosotros", at least I've never encountered it.</p><p>Instead you might say something like: "Hola chicos" or in Italian, "Ciao ragazzi", which both literally translate to "hi boys." If it were a room filled with women you might say: "Hola chicas" or "Ciao ragazze", literally "hi girls". What if the room is filled with men and women? Spanish and Italian both default to the male-centric "Hola chicos" and "Ciao ragazzi" respectively, even if the crowd is comprised of one thousand women and only one man. That might be changing at least in some circles. One fix is being more inclusive by saying "Hola chicos y chicas" for example, or "Ciao ragazzi e ragazze" which can be a bit cumbersome, especially in an informal context. <br /></p><p>By contrast, "guys" has no generally accepted contemporary female counterpart. Probably the closest is gals (once-upon-a-time filling the bill), which sounds to my ears hopelessly antiquated, although some folks are trying to <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/03/i-am-gal-hear-me-roar/253910/" target="_blank">bring it back</a></span></b>. </p><p>It seems to me that our culture is striving to be ever more inclusive, gender-neutral and informal. In that vein, "you guys" would seem to be the perfect second person familiar pronoun.</p><p>Not everyone agrees. </p><p>I recently came across a 2018 article in <i>The Atlantic</i> called "<b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/08/guys-gender-neutral/568231/" target="_blank">The Problem With 'Hey Guys</a></span></b>'". Apparently, some people don't find the gender-neutral "guys" to be acceptable. As the piece points out in its introduction:</p><i> it’s a symbol of exclusion—a word with an originally male meaning that is frequently used to refer to people who don’t consider themselves "guys."</i><div><i><br /></i></div><div>OK, point taken.<br /><p>But the problem is that language seldom works as it should work, but rather how people want it to work. As I pointed out in <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://jamesiska.blogspot.com/2021/11/i-could-care-less-literally.html" target="_blank">another post</a></span></b>, how else do you explain that the expression "I could care less" means the opposite of what the words indicate, and that we have to invent a new word for "literally" because literally, literally doesn't mean literally anymore. </p><p>The Atlantic article goes on to suggest some more PC, gender-neutral alternatives to "you guys", such as "friends", "folks", "people", "team", and the ever popular "you all", in speech typically shortened to "y'all". </p><p>The problem with these is they all fit into their own niche, carry some amount of baggage, and are not nearly as flexible as "you guys". For example:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>"Friends" has a disingenuous ring to it. It sounds like something that would come out of the mouth of a televangelist or a used car salesman. </li><li>"Folks" implies that what follows is bad news such as: "I hate to tell you this folks, but your pet ferret has COVID." </li><li>My father always used to address us with "hello people". As English was not his first language, I'm not quite sure what he intended to convey but "people" has a very authoritarian/dismissive ring to it as in: "What were you people thinking?" </li><li>"Team" sounds like someone is trying too hard. </li><li>"You all"/"y'all" both make perfect sense as both a greeting and as a plural pronoun. The problem is both are SO identified with the language of the American South and by extension, Black American English, that anyone who uses those terms and is not a member of either of those groups, sounds phony.</li></ul><p></p><p>And on and on and on...</p><p>Which brings us back to "you guys". </p><p>Thanks in part to popular culture where so much of our casual speech originates, (think of the opening to the 1970s children's TV show <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL6w5bRgZp0" target="_blank">The Electric Company</a></span></b> featuring the great Rita Moreno), "you guys" has become enshrined in the American English Hall of Fame. </p><p>I think it's really going against the grain to not accept that in certain contexts, "you guys" has evolved into a truly gender-neutral term, just as it evolved centuries before from exclusively describing an object, to describing people. </p><p>As a generally accepted gender-neutral term, "you guys" has the advantage over its equivalents in other languages as we saw above, where you have to reverse engineer them in order to be inclusive, making them less informal in the process. And as we also saw, "you guys" has less baggage than its alternatives in English.</p><p>"You guys" has become so ingrained into our American English lexicon that whether we like it or not, it's going to be around for a very long time. </p><p>The other day at Thanksgiving I noticed my very proper (linguistically speaking) ninety something, former elementary school principal mother using "you guys" to address her equally persnickety eighty something female friends who found no offense in it.</p><p>Just try to pry that bone away from those ladies, I dare you (guys).</p><p><br /></p></div>James Iskahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219990004487304003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5271409126833086486.post-55366407781288057882023-11-26T11:00:00.009-06:002023-12-02T12:20:49.563-06:00Talking Point Number One: It's All About Colonialism<p>This is part one of a series of posts I hope to create that deals with the current talking points concerning the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. </p><p>There are simple problems in this world with complex solutions, and there are complex problems with relatively simple solutions. I can't think of any real-life examples of the latter at the moment but I know they exist. But the most heart-wrenching soul searching, tragic issue dominating the news at this writing, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is a sterling example of the former.</p><p>In a nutshell, simplified only to a small degree, here is the problem:</p><p>A nation, the Jewish people, had lived in exile from their ancestral homeland for nearly two millennia. Keeping their way of life, their traditions and for the most part their religion intact, the Jewish diaspora lived as outsiders wherever they found themselves, and were often treated as such. Despised, denigrated, segregated, deprived of the rights of citizenship, and often basic human rights, antisemitism has been a given in the Jewish experience since their time in exile. </p><p>Zionism, the movement to establish a Jewish state and homeland, has existed for centuries. It wasn't exclusively a Jewish movement as Christian groups hoping to fulfill scripture, found inspiration in returning Jews to the Holy Land in order to achieve that end.</p><p>It was in fact American Christian Zionists who coined the contentious term: "A land without a people for a people without a land."</p><p>That land of course was Palestine and suffice it to say, the first part of that aphorism was dead wrong. For centuries, Arab Muslims formed the majority of the population of Palestine, the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. For the most part, they lived there in peace with Christian and Jewish minorities, all the while under the sphere of the influence of foreign colonial rule.</p><p>Meanwhile the nineteenth century saw a marked increase in antisemitism in Europe which inspired the modern Zionist movement. In the late 1800s, <b>Theodor Herzl</b>, a Jewish lawyer and journalist born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in what is today the city of Budapest, would become the founder and driving force of the movement that would ultimately result in the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. As a young man Herzl realized that assimilation of the Jews into European society was impossible. He believed there was no solution to antisemitism and that the only way for the Jewish people to live in peace and freedom was the establishment of a state of their own.</p><p>Herzl's ideas were brought to the public in his book <i>Der Judenstaat</i>, (The Jewish State), published in 1896. The following is the conclusion of Herzl's work:</p><blockquote><i>...I believe that a wondrous generation of Jews will spring into existence... Let me repeat once more my opening words: The Jews who wish for a State will have it. We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and die peacefully in our own homes. The world will be freed by our liberty, enriched by our wealth, magnified by our greatness. And whatever we attempt there to accomplish for our own welfare, will react powerfully and beneficially for the good of humanity.<br /></i><p></p></blockquote><p>Palestine was not the only location considered for the new Jewish State. Historically, places as far afield as sites in the United States, far eastern Russia and even Japan were brought up as possibilities. In 1903, the British suggested a territory of Eastern Africa which was under their control, in present day Kenya as a possibility. Herzl took that idea under consideration. </p><p>One of the reasons for the rejection of the idea was that the people already there would object.</p><p>Imagine that.</p><p>Some say that colonialism is responsible for the current crisis in the Middle East and that idea is not entirely without merit. As has been pointed out ad nauseam by fervent supporters of Israel, there has never been an independent Palestinian state with Palestinian Arabs in control of their own destiny. Rather, Palestine and its people have been pawns on a chessboard representing whatever foreign power controlled them. Some would say they continue to be.</p><p>As for the Jews, if the 19th Century was disastrous for them in Europe, the 20th Century was catastrophic. </p><p>During World War I, in exchange for their support in the effort against the Ottoman Turks, the British and the French made contradictory deals, promising self-determination to the Arabs of the Middle East, and a homeland to the Jewish people in Palestine. After the war, the two victorious European powers had a change of heart, dividing the spoils of their victory among themselves and in the process created the nations of Iraq and Jordan as token rewards to the Arabs. However due to their strategic importance, Syria and Palestine, also considered by the Arabs to be part of the deal, would remain under European power. The Europeans did keep their promise to support a Jewish homeland in Palestine however, with little regard to the people who already lived there.</p><p>The following is the complete text of the Balfour Declaration of 1917, a public pledge written by then British Foreign Secretary <b>Arthur Balfour</b> and sent to a prominent British Zionist, Lord Walter Rothchild:</p><p></p><blockquote><p><i>His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object,<b> it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine,</b> or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country. </i></p><p></p></blockquote><p>(emphasis mine)</p><p>Some staunch defenders of Israel use the highlighted portion of the text to point out that the rights of the indigenous Palestinian population were indeed an integral part of the Zionism project. </p><p>What they fail to mention was that Britain had no intention of involving the current residents of their plan to create a homeland for another group. In a private memorandum, Arthur Balfour said this:</p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>In Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants.</i></blockquote><p></p><p>He would later add that the cause of a Jewish homeland was...</p><p><i></i></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><blockquote><i>Of far profounder import than the desires of the Arab inhabitants.</i></blockquote><p>Colonialism certainly created the framework that set in motion the conflict we have today where in the words of the prominent Israeli intellectual Arthur Koestler: “one nation solemnly promised to a second nation the country of a third.” </p><p>Yet in the wake of the decline of colonialism in the 20th century, another "ism" had taken its place, nationalism. The right to self-determination is a noble concept that looks great on paper. But the real world is not so tidy and compartmentalized. There are always groups of people who are left behind when one group is granted self-determination over their region after years of colonial rule. We have seen this happen time and again in Africa, India, the Balkans and of course Israel, to name just a few. </p><p>The British were in control of Palestine from the capture of Jerusalem from the Ottoman Turks in 1917, until 1948 when they decided to cut their losses and go home. This period is referred to as the British mandate of Palestine. While upholding the Balfour Declaration of 1917 which declared British support for a Jewish state in Palestine, the British controlled the number of Jews who could enter Israel, even during the height of the reign of terror of the Nazis that resulted in the Holocaust. It is said this was done in order to prevent the Arab countries from siding with the Axis powers. Nevertheless, between the end of the First and the end of the Second World Wars, the Jewish population of Palestine increased from around 90,000 to 630,000, while during that time, the Arab population remained fairly stable at around one million people.</p><p>It should come as no surprise that there would be consequences to such a dramatic demographic shift over such a short period of time. The consequense was violence committed by both the Arabs and the Jews. </p><p>In 1948 the Arab population of Palestine was still in the majority. When the British left, control of the region was given over to the newly formed United Nations. The U.N. determined that the solution to the Arab/Jewish conflict was to partition the region in two areas with each group given hegemony over their own area. The map they drew up looked very similar to the Israel of today with the West Bank and Gaza as well as the Golan Heights given over to the Arabs, while the rest of the territory, some 60 percent of the land, was to be handed over to the Jews. Given the very simple fact that the minority of the land was offered to Arab Palestinians, the indigenous people of the region who still constituted a majority of the population, they rejected the offer. </p><p>Can anyone blame them?</p><p>Or for that matter, can anyone blame the Jews for looking to find a homeland, especially after the horrors of the Holocaust?</p><p>As I said at the top, at its heart it's a simple problem, namely two groups of people in conflict over the control of a small piece of land.</p><p>The solution to the problem on the other hand, is painfully difficult.</p><p>Sure, colonialism played its part. But blaming colonialism or any other "ism" I'm afraid, isn't in the cards as part of the solution for the here and now.</p><p>We're stuck with what we have, Israeli and Palestinian people, many with quite different agendas, some 15 million people trying, and some not, to live together in a piece of land that is just slightly bigger than the state of New Jersey.</p><p>It's a simple fact of nature that we cannot turn back the hands of time to change the past, we can only move forward.</p><p>The next talking point when I get around to it is this: anti-Zionism = antisemitism.</p><p>Stay tuned.</p><p><br /></p><p></p>James Iskahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219990004487304003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5271409126833086486.post-46035540233218473322023-10-29T10:39:00.007-05:002023-11-08T22:57:45.816-06:00Running Out of Other Hands<p>There's lots of blame to go around, that much is certain. What is also certain is there is not a single justification for what took place in Israel, across the border from Gaza on October 7, 2023.</p><p>None whatsoever. </p><p>They call it Israel's 9/11 which is really saying something about a country whose entire existence has been defined by war and terror. In my opinion, in the scope of sheer depravity if not body count, 10/7 was worse. </p><p>On that dreadful day, at this writing, three weeks ago, members of the terrorist organization Hamas, standing eye-to-eye with their victims, mostly ordinary Israeli citizens, tortured, raped, and butchered close to 1,500 people. Some were intentionally burned alive while hiding in their homes. Others were beheaded. Bodies of victims were desecrated. Many who were not killed were taken hostage. No one was spared, not the elderly, not the infirm, not children.</p><p>I'm not going to go into all the horrific details because information on that is everywhere. </p><p>All I will say is that it takes a special kind of monster to kill parents in front of their children, not to mention all the other atrocities that took place that day.</p><p>Almost as disturbing were the scores of public acts around the world including the U.S., where people who support the Palestinian cause (a just cause in my opinion), <b>openly celebrated</b> the 10/7 attacks, claiming they were a legitimate response to Israeli policies.</p><p>If torture, rape and slaughter of innocent people, and cheering it all on aren't bad enough, for author/neuroscientist/philosopher <b>Sam Harris</b>, there is another atrocity that trumps them all, the use of human shields. In his words:</p><p><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></p><blockquote><i>I’m
talking about people who will strategically put their own
noncombatants, their own women and children, into the line of fire so
that they can inflict further violence upon their enemies, knowing that
their enemies have a more civilized moral code that will render them
reluctant to shoot back, for fear of killing or maiming innocent
noncombatants. </i></blockquote><p></p><p>This is taken from a transcript of Harris's recent podcast on the 10/7 attacks titled: <i><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b><a href="https://www.samharris.org/blog/the-sin-of-moral-equivalence" target="_blank">The Sin of Moral Equivalence.</a></b></span></i> In the podcast, he notes that while ethics and morality take on different forms depending upon one's culture and religion, human civilization has advanced to the point where there are certain fundamental moral laws in our day an age, that nearly everyone accepts. It is generally agreed for example that it is wrong to kill (unless absolutely unavoidable), or to rape (in any circumstance), or to torture, or to take hostages, or to revel in such acts. And it is beyond wrong to use innocent people as shields to protect oneself from committing these crimes. <br /></p><p>Therefore according to Harris, there is not any moral equivalence between the violent acts of Hamas, and the violent acts of Israel, who is merely attempting to defend itself. In his words: "Intentions count." </p><p>I agree.<br /></p><p>But he raises a few eyebrows with the following:</p><p><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></p><blockquote><p><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In
the West, we have advanced to a point where the killing of
noncombatants, however unavoidable it becomes once wars start, is
inadvertent and unwanted and regrettable and even scandalous. Yes, there
are still war crimes. And I won’t be surprised if some Israelis commit
war crimes in Gaza now. But, if they do, these will be exceptions that
prove the rule—which is that Israel remains a lonely outpost of
civilized ethics in the absolute moral wasteland that is the Middle
East.</span> <br /></i></p><p><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">To
deny that the government of Israel (with all of its flaws) is better
than Hamas, to deny that Israeli culture (with all of its flaws) is
better than Palestinian culture in its attitude toward violence, is to
deny that moral progress itself is possible. </span></i></p></blockquote><p><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></p><p>The problem is we could argue all day about whose culture is the morally superior, but in the end, we're still left with the question of what to do about the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. </p><p>I'm sure it makes little difference to the victims of the 10/7 attack, or the Israeli response to it, (over 5,000 people killed in Gaza at this writing), whether their or their loved one's killer was morally superior or inferior to the killers on the other side.<br /></p><p>We can pick sides and argue until we're blue in the face as to who's cause is more valid, which side is responsible for more atrocities, and what group is more entitled to call the small patch of land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, home.</p><p>Or we can go back and forth justifying the actions of both sides until we run out of other hands, as I certainly have after the 10/7 attack.</p><p>But in the end, there are only two realities that matter: </p><p>Israel is here to stay and so are the Palestinians. We can either go on as we have for 75 years living with an unending cycle of violence and death, or somehow, someway come up with a solution for the Israelis and Palestinians to find a way to live together in relative peace.</p><p>Yes I know, that sounds very kumbaya of me but in all honesty, short of the mass eviction or genocide of one or both of the groups that call that land (whatever you want to call it) home, can you think of any other scenario?<br /></p><p>No, I'm not presumptuous enough to claim to have an answer to this conflict. All I know is that it is not as some suggest a struggle between right and wrong, between good and evil. If it were, it would be an easy choice for those of us who haven't a personal stake in the issue to pick sides, like the other war we're dealing with in Ukraine. Nevertheless, many do pick sides without giving the other side the benefit of at least trying to walk in their shoes, even for a brief moment. </p><p>To be sure there are very bad, perhaps evil actors involved in the current struggle in the Middle East, but the truth is that both sides have legitimate arguments that need to be listened to and respected, especially by each other. <br /></p><p>In all his wisdom, Sam Harris makes no bones about which side he's on, which is certainly his prerogative. But in doing so, he illustrates much of the disconnect we have going on right now on both sides regarding this issue. </p><p>While denying moral equivalence between the 10/7 attacks and Israel's response, Harris pays lip service to some of the issues Palestinians have, mentioning the:<br /></p><p><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></p><blockquote><i> the growth of
(Israeli) settlements, (and) the daily humiliation of living under occupation.</i></blockquote><p> But then he adds:<br /></p><p></p><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><blockquote><i>
Incidentally, there has been no occupation of Gaza since 2005, when
Israel withdrew from the territory unilaterally, forcibly removing 9000
of its own citizens, and literally digging up Jewish graves. The
Israelis have been out of Gaza for nearly 20 years. And yet they have
been attacked from Gaza ever since.</i></blockquote></span><p>This is a half-truth. While it's true that previous to the 10/7 attacks, Israeli forces were not occupying Gaza from the inside, Israel has blockaded the region, walled it off, controlling its air and maritime space, six of seven of its land borders, and as we've seen during this conflict, complete control of Gaza's utilities including water, electricity and telecommunications.</p><p>Harris's comments dismiss the dreadful conditions people have lived through in Gaza leading some to declare it, an "open air prison." And that was before Israel's current air bombardment and impending ground invasion, which have made it a living hell on earth. </p><p>In all fairness it must be stated that a great deal of the suffering of the people of Gaza has been exacerbated by Hamas who has been the governing body there since 2007, and has been using the territory to launch missile strikes against Israel.</p><p>Sam Harris is not alone in his selective reading of history, In virtually all the assessments of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict I've read on both sides of the issue, the authors use charged language consisting of half-truths, false equivalences, conflation and other rhetorical devices crafted for the purpose of minimizing the suffering of and dehumanizing the other side. </p><p>Folks taking the Palestinian side for example like to use provocative terms charging Israel with "imperialism" "settler colonialism", "racism", "occupation", "ethnic cleansing", "apartheid" and even "fascism". These are fighting words, terms designed to ring a bell by conflating Israel's treatment of the Palestinians with familiar grievous atrocities that have taken place throughout history such as the European conquest of the Americas, Apartheid South Africa, the brutal war in the Balkans in the nineties, and the quintessential symbol of evil, Nazi Germany.</p><p>Like Sam Hariis's occupation remark, while not entirely off the mark, these are half-truths that tell only part of the story. Israel is indeed guilty of committing grievous atrocities against the Palestinian people. What the folks who use these terms conveniently leave out, are the grievous atrocities carried out against Israelis by terrorist organizations acting, or so they claim, in the name of the Palestinian people.</p><p>Also conveniently not mentioned is the terrible history of racism and oppression against the Jewish people, culminating in the Holocaust which was the final straw that made the establishment of the State of Israel, a fait accompli.</p><p>On the other side, in a 1969 interview, then Israeli Prime Minister <b>Golda Meir</b> said this: "There was no such thing as Palestinians." She went on:</p><blockquote><i>When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country from them. </i><b style="font-style: italic;">They did not exist. </b>(Emphasis mine)<br /></blockquote><p>What she says here with the exception of the last sentence, is not entirely without merit. Before the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, the territory of Palestine had been under the control of the colonial powers of Great Britain, the Ottoman Turks, several other Muslim groups broken up for a brief period by European Crusaders, the Byzantine Empire, the Romans, (with brief interludes of Jewish rule), the Greeks, the Babylonians and the Persians. That takes us back to about 600 B.C.E. when the Hebrews still ruled over much of the area when the Egyptians weren't calling the shots. In none of that time was there a Palestinian state governed by a people called the Palestinians. </p><p>According to Meir's framework, the people who came to be known as Palestinians, were simply Arabs who happened to live in Palestine. As such they were subjects of the imperial powers mentioned above and were referred to as Palestinian Arabs. Golda Meir compares these people to the Jews like her, who lived in Palestine before 1948, and were referred to as Palestinian Jews. </p>So she's right in that there was never a Palestinian state. Other commentators point out that even the word Palestine is a Greek, not an Arab word. <div><br /></div><div>Golda Meir spent years backpedaling her remark but the idea of a lack of a true Palestinian identity has been picked up by many hardline defenders of Israel and has been the foundation of their argument that the people who identify themselves as Palestinians have no legitimate case. In their view, they are simply Arabs who should live with other Arabs in places like Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt. <br /><div><br /></div><div>The germ of that argument may be factually true, but in its entirety the argument can be refuted in two words: so what? </div><div><br /></div><div>Before World War I, about 700,000 Palestinian Arabs lived in the region as had their ancestors before them for millennia. There was no mass migration of Arab people into Palestine, no one date when we can say the Arabs arrived in Palestine. Modern day Palestinians can legitimately trace at least part of their ancestry to the region back to the time of Abraham and before.</div><div><br /></div><div>As can the Jews.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Arabs of Palestine had their own towns, farms and way of life. They bonded as a community. They had developed their own culture and language, one of the many dialects of Arabic. And they lived in peace with members of the Jewish minority who had remained after the mass exodus during the first century C.E. after the Romans destroyed the Second Temple. </div><div><br /></div><div>That all changed after World War I as the massive immigration of Jewish people into Palestine, made possible by Great Britain with the Balfour Declaration of 1917 which declared British support for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in the region, which completely changed the demographics of Palestine. </div><div><br /></div><div>Tens of thousands of Arab Palestinians were evicted from their homes and forced into exile, communities were destroyed, olive trees that provided Palestinian families their sustenance for centuries were uprooted, and entire towns were leveled. One incident was so horrific, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_Yassin_massacre" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">The Deir Yessin Massacre</span></b></a>, the obliteration of an Arab town near Jerusalem by radical Israeli terrorists, that it bears resemblance to what happened three weeks ago outside of Gaza, again if not in body count, in terms of sheer depravity. Remember as Sam Harris pointed out, intentions count. </div><div><br /></div><div>Today, Jewish people from every corner of the planet who have never set foot in the place are welcome to move to Israel upon which they automatically become citizens, yet Arab people who were born there and have since left for whatever reason, are denied that right.</div><div><br /></div><div>I could go on forever describing sins of the past and present but what's the point?</div><div><br /></div><div>The question of the day is where do we go from here?</div><div><br /></div><div>Among the people making the rounds on the interview circuit in the past month is the Israeli author and historian <b>Yuval Noah Harrari,</b> who has friends and family members in Kibbutz Be-eri who were victims of the 10/7 massacre.</div><div><br /></div><div>Harrari has been a strong critic of the current government in Israel led by Benjamin Netanyahu, who according to Harrari is a populist, conspiracy theory driven strongman with aims to divide Israelis in order to shore up his own power. (sound familiar?). Harrari directly attributes the "success" of the Hamas 10/7 assault to the distraction caused by Israeli political infighting which led to a breakdown of security forces and Israeli intelligence resulting in letting their guard down, enabling the Hamas terrorists to cross the heavily defended border virtually unencumbered. </div><div> <br /><div>Harrari also finds Israel's response to the attack unacceptable. While he agrees that Hamas must be dealt with severely, he doesn't agree with the hard liners' stance that the terrorist group must be annihilated. </div><div><br /></div><div>Beyond the obvious moral ramifications of killing thousands of innocent Palestinians in order to wipe Hamas off the face of the earth, there are strong tactical points that should be considered using Harrari's logic. </div><div><br /></div><div>Hamas knew exactly what Israel's response would be to their 10/7 attack, and Israel is playing right into their hands. Hamas on its own has no chance to stand up militarily to the mighty Israeli armed forces. But they know that thousands of dead Palestinians at the hands of Israel will further harden the hearts of the remaining Palestinians to the thought of a negotiated peace, and turn much of the world against Israel. In this sense, every dead Palestinian at the hands of Israel is a victory for Hamas, whose stated goal is the replacement of Israel by an Islamic state. </div><div><br /></div><div>Annihilating Hamas, if that is even remotely possible, would inevitably result in the deaths of several more tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians and the displacement of millions. With Hamas gone at the cost of all those lives, something will inevitably arise to take its place. Something that is, that will probably be much worse. </div><div><br /></div><div>Demanding justice is a normal, fundamental human desire. But Yuval Harrari poses this question: what is more important, justice or peace? There will never be traditional eye-for-eye justice for the 10/7 attack, just as there will never be justice for 9/11, Deir Yessin, or the Holocaust. </div><div><br /></div><div>The only real justice for the victims of these atrocities is to do everything in our power to ensure they never happen again. </div><div><br /></div><div>Justice in the form of retribution only leads to more retribution, an unending cycle, just as we've had in the past 75 years. </div><div><br /></div><div>Harrari proposes a rekindling of the peace talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia that were looking very promising up until 10/7, in fact he speculates their very existence was one of the prime motivations for the attacks. The last thing Hamas, a jihadist organization wants is peace with Israel.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then in Harrari's words, with a </div><blockquote><i>coalition of the willing – ranging from the US and the EU to Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority – should take responsibility for the Gaza Strip away from Hamas, rebuild Gaza and simultaneously completely disarm Hamas and demilitarise the Gaza Strip.</i></blockquote><div>With a rebuilt Gaza, and assurances from Israel to keep their hands off, maybe, just maybe there will be some hope for the future among Palestinians and the possibility that one day they will be able to live with dignity. And if that happens, maybe just maybe, Hamas and other similar groups will be seen for the truly needless destruction they cause and will be rendered irrelevant.</div><div><br /></div><div>Yes it's farfetched but it's an infinitely better scenario then simply blasting Gaza to kingdom come, which is what we are experiencing now. </div><div><br /></div><div>But peace won't come unless attitudes on both sides change. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Moshe Dayan</b> was a formidable Israeli military leader and politician from the state's founding until his death in 1981. In 1956, he delivered the eulogy of a fallen comrade killed outside his kibbutz near Gaza by Palestinian fedayeen. Defining the reality and the terrible moral compromise forged with the establishment of the State of Israel, Dayan's words are resolute, yet filled with self-reflection and anguish:</div><blockquote><i>Let us not condemn the murderers. What do we know of their fierce hatred for us? For eight years they have been living in the refugee camps of Gaza, while right before their eyes we have been turning the land and the villages, in which they and their forefathers lived, into our land.<br /></i><br /><i>Not from the Arabs of Gaza must we demand the blood of Roi, but from ourselves. How our eyes are closed to the reality of our fate, unwilling to see the destiny of our generation in its full cruelty. Have we forgotten that this small band of youths, settled in Nahal Oz, carries on its shoulders the heavy gates of Gaza, beyond which hundreds of thousands of eyes and arms huddle together and pray for the onset of our weakness so that they may tear us to pieces — has this been forgotten? For we know that if the hope of our destruction is to perish, we must be, morning and evening, armed and ready.</i></blockquote><div>Imagine that kind of honesty coming out of the mouth of ANY politician today, let alone one involved in the Israel/Palestine crisis.</div><div><br /></div><div>Compare Dayan's words to these words addressed to the Palestinians, of Israel's current finance minister Bezalel Smotrich:</div><blockquote><i>you are here by mistake because Ben-Gurion (</i>Israel’s first prime minister<i>) didn’t finish the job in ’48 and didn’t kick you out.</i></blockquote><p>Clearly we not only need to disarm organizations like Hamas, but we also need to encourage the Israeli and the Palestinian people to stop choosing religious-zealot-extremists to lead them, as leadership on both sides has tragically failed its people.</p><p>As I said above, Israel and the Palestinian people are here to stay, despite the rantings of sociopathic lunatics.</p><div>We need to tone down the rhetoric and be willing to listen to different voices to try to understand our adversaries, instead of demonizing or dehumanizing them. </div><div><br /></div><div>Most of all, rather than declaring ourselves on the side of the Palestinians or the Israelis, all people of good will should declare ourselves to be on the side of peace.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm not at all optimistic peace will come, but what other choice do we have?</div><div><p></p></div></div></div>James Iskahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219990004487304003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5271409126833086486.post-83098320250022355612023-10-15T10:41:00.006-05:002023-10-15T11:09:37.729-05:00Yo No Sabo<p>Last July in Los Angeles, El Tri, the Mexican National soccer team, won the CONCACAF Gold Cup, the men's Pan-American Championship. The final game was covered by ESPN Deportes, the Spanish language branch of the cable sports network. After the game, one of their reporters, José del Valle, sought out Mexican fans celebrating their team's victory and came upon a young boy wearing the El Tri jersey. The reporter introduced the child to his audience as "the future of Mexico", but when he began asking questions, it was clear the boy was not a fluent Spanish speaker. To which the reporters in the studio lamented that the boy belongs to a generation that no longer speaks Spanish. </p><p>So much for the future of a Spanish speaking Mexico I guess was the message of the moment. <br /></p><p>The video of the incident posted on YouTube went viral with comments shaming the boy, his parents, and Latin American parents in the United States who do not teach their children Spanish.</p><p>Since then, the media, social and otherwise have been flooded with articles and reports asking the question: "is Spanish fluency an essential part of being Hispanic?" </p><p>There are two words that can best describe the situation: it's complicated.</p><p>I have an opinion which I'll share at the end of this post. As I'm not a member of that community, my opinion is irrelevant. However, as a child of an immigrant whose native language was not English, as a parent, and as a passionate, yet challenged language learner myself, I do have a bit of perspective.</p><p>So here's my story:</p><p>My father immigrated to this country from Czechoslovakia in 1955. He moved to Chicago and met my mother in the fall of 1957. After a brief romance, they married in January 1958 and later that year, I was born. That's how it was done in those days I guess.</p><p>Anyway, my dad had his heart set on teaching his only son his native language, which he began to do. An audio tape of a two year old me once existed where I was speaking perfect two year old Czech. When I heard the tape perhaps ten years later, I asked what had happened, why was my Czech so much better then than it was now? I can't remember what my dad's response was but knowing him, he probably blamed it on me. </p><p>Years later after having children of my own, it makes perfect sense. My dad married a woman who was not Czech so obviously, Czech was not spoken at home between my parents. While my dad valiantly tried to speak to me in Czech from the outset, he, a man of little patience, must have given up at some point when it became obvious that I was more interested speaking the language that was all around me, English, rather than Czech. </p><p>Which is too bad because boy how I wished I could speak Czech, especially when I worked for my father in his paint store and got stares of incredulity from his Czech customers when I had to tell them "Nemluvím česky", "I don't speak Czech." "What's wrong with that kid?" my mind's ear could hear them say to themselves, in Czech of course.</p><p>And boy do I wish I spoke Czech now. <br /></p><p>So in a way I can identify with the "no sabo kids", a derogatory term for Hispanic-Americans who speak either broken or no Spanish. "No sabo" incidentally is grammatically incorrect Spanish for "I don't know", making the put down doubly insulting. <br /></p><p>I don't blame my father one bit. I have friends who successfully taught their kids to be bi-lingual from the get-go without the help of their spouses, and understand the commitment it took on their part, both parent and child. I especially appreciate it when I think back on all the things I wanted to do for my own children but didn't, simply because life got in the way.</p><p>No Pop, it wasn't your or anybody else's fault that I didn't turn out speaking Czech, although I haven't given up hope that one day...<br /></p><p>I said I can identify with the no sabos "in a way" because the issue is vastly more complicated for Latin American people than it was for me. </p><p>Here are some thoughts:</p><p>With the exception of Anglo Saxons, every racial/ethnic group in the United States has experienced marginalization and discrimination to a degree, some obviously more than others. With some groups, once members became culturally integrated into the population, usually one or two generations after family members first arrived on these shores, successfully assimilated children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of immigrants transformed from being the marginalized into being the marginalizers. Assimilation historically involved losing the traits that define the culture from which one's ancestors came, or at least sublimating them to a degree where they don't interfere with the traits that once defined a "typical" American. </p><p>Being a "typical" American, even as recently as a half century ago, meant fulfilling certain well-defined requirements. It meant having values such as personal liberty, upward mobility, and owning a home. A typical American may or may not have been a church goer, but usually identified him or herself as Protestant Christian of one denomination or other. A typical American spoke Standard American English without a trace of a foreign accent and above all, a typical American was white. </p><p>You can see this for yourself in popular culture by watching movies from an earlier era. Even a film <a href="https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/04/its-a-wonderful-socialist-life" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b>with "progressive" sympathies</b></span></a> such as the 1947 classic <i>It's a Wonderful Life</i>, presented its vision of that wonderful life as centering around a small town, (another typical American value) populated by White Anglo Saxon Protestants. The handful of people in the film that did not fit that description were Annie the black housekeeper, Mr. Martini, the Italian bar owner, and the nameless immigrant residents of the housing development on the outskirts of town, made possible by the honorable and humble Building and Loan at the center of the story. </p><p>These "ethnic" characters while treated with a modicum of respect by the filmmakers (unusual for the time), were outsiders looking to land themselves a piece of that wonderful life, the so-called "American Dream." One of the implied messages of the movie is if the people in the projects kept their noses to the grindstone and strove to achieve those requirements and maintained the values mentioned above, they too could one day be welcomed into the town proper as full-fledged members. Martini, with his strong Italian accent may never quite reach that promised land, but his children, whom we assume would have lost the accent, might. </p><p>But what about Annie's offspring? Well, they would still be black and at least in the Bedford Falls we see in the movie, there are no black people other than servants, whom we assume lived in their own section on the outskirts of the town proper. Their skin color meant there would be no assimilation for them, therefore no membership in the promised land.</p><p>1947, the year<i> It's a Wonderful Lif e </i>was made, was a watershed year in American history. It was the year the color barrier was broken in "organized baseball", a milestone in the history of race relations in the United States. 1947 was the year things began to change in this country, albeit drop by drop. </p><p>Much has been written about the modern Civil Rights movement coming to life after World War II when black veterans after serving their country with distinction, came home to find they were still treated as second class citizens. <br /></p><p>The same was true for Hispanic veterans. <br /></p><p>Discrimination against and the marginalization of Latinos in the United States may have taken different forms, but both have been as pervasive and have existed at least as long as the discrimination and marginalization of black people in this country. The two groups are intrinsically connected by their subjection to racism, exploitation, segregation, rejection, and even by the issue of slavery.</p><p>In an article published in August 2019 in the Washington Post titled <i>A History of Anti-Hispanic Bigotry in the United States</i>, responding to the idea that resentment against Hispanics has increased since the rise of vile rhetoric on the part of the ultra-right, the article's author Maria Arana assures us that:</p><blockquote><blockquote><p><i>It has not. These are long-held resentments. For centuries they have
been fed by ignorance, racism and a stubborn unwillingness to understand
a population whose ancestors were here by the millions — long before
the first pilgrim set foot on Plymouth Rock.</i></p></blockquote><p></p></blockquote><p></p><p>A pivotal moment for Americans of Mexican descent was the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848. The westward expansion of the United States all the way to the Pacific Ocean was considered by many, to be the will of God. This was expressed by the term "Manifest Destiny" which was coined in 1845 by a columnist named John L. O'Sullivan who wrote the following in the <i>New York Morning News:</i></p><p><i>And that claim is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us.<br /></i><br />The chief obstacle to U.S. Manifest Destiny was Mexico which at the time included what is now California, Nevada, Utah, most of Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas and Wyoming. Texas, once also part of Mexico, declared its independence in 1836. However, Mexico refused to recognize that independence even after Texas U.S. statehood was declared in 1845. </p><p>The high-minded expansion of democracy and liberty from the Atlantic to the Pacific was not all that drove the United States to eventually go to war with Mexico. Southern politicians were eager to gain territory for political reasons, chiefly to expand slavery into potentially future states. Increasing the number of slave states would add like-minded representatives to Congress to strengthen their standing against the free states of the North. </p><p>Efforts to purchase land from Mexico were unfruitful leading the United States to send troops to disputed parts of Texas. When Mexican forces repelled the U.S. forces, Congress declared war against Mexico. </p><p>The war was short lived; in a little over one year of fighting, U.S. forces marched into Mexico City.</p><p>The U.S. government was at odds over the terms of settlement, some going so far as to advocate for complete U.S. annexation of Mexico. </p><p>Annexing land that once was Mexico's was met with opposition by South Carolina senator and former vice president John C. Calhoun whose words would be reflected in the attitudes of generations of Americans to follow:</p><blockquote><p><i>We have never dreamt of incorporating into our Union any but the Caucasian race--the free white race. To incorporate Mexico, would be the first instance of the kind of incorporating an Indian race; for more than half of the Mexicans are Indians, and the other is composed chiefly of mixed tribes. I protest against such a union as that! Ours, sir, is the Government of a white race.... We are anxious to force free government on all; and I see that it has been urged ... that it is the mission of this country to spread civil and religious liberty over all the world, and especially over this continent. It is a great mistake.</i></p><p></p></blockquote><p>The following year Mexico and the United States came to peace terms with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which saw Mexico ceding 55 percent of its territory to the United States, and the establishment of the U.S. /Mexico border which exists to this day.</p><p>Along with land, the U.S. inherited the people who lived there. </p><p>Here again is Maria Arana:</p><blockquote><i>...that victory came with hostages: the Mexican American people. That grudging population was not easy to exterminate; not by war, nor by verdict. There were too many to be herded down trails of tears or consigned to faraway exile, and they were useful, if vexatious. They knew the land, worked the land and could be put to work for white overlords.</i></blockquote><div>The people living in the lands ceded by Mexico to the United States were automatically granted U.S. citizenship. But much like the rights (including property rights), granted to former enslaved people after the Civil War by the Reconstruction amendments, the legal status of these new American citizens was largely ignored. </div><div><br /></div><div>As Maria Arana suggests, so long as Mexicans proved useful as a reliable source of labor, often doing work other Americans refused, they were tolerated. Once that usefulness faded, Mexican U.S. citizens were shunned, blamed for taking jobs away from "real" Americans, and were often the victims of segregation, forced replacement to Mexico, violence and even lynch mobs. </div><div><br /></div><div>Most related to the subject at hand, despite there never having been an official language of the United States, speaking Spanish in public in parts of the country was strongly discouraged and even outlawed. </div><div><br /></div>And so, the die was cast for the next century and half of Americans of Mexican descent living as foreigners in their own country, much as Martin Luther King said of Black people in his "I Have a Dream" speech.<div><br /></div><div>Of course, people with ties to the Spanish speaking nations of the Americas living in the United States are not limited to Mexicans. Hispanic people come from the Caribbean, Central and South America, all with distinct cultures, reasons for being here, and legal status. Latinos are an ethnically and racially diverse group, their ancestry is African, Indigenous American, European, Asian, and all possible combinations of those. </div><div><p>Chicago alone has two major groups representing nearly 85 percent of the city's Hispanic population, one from Mexico, the other from Puerto Rico, two countries with vastly different cultures. The remaining Hispanic population of the city has representatives from Central and South America and other Caribbean island nations, each with its distinct culture. Many things make up a culture, history, tradition, religion, values, art, music, cuisine, sports, dress and of course language, just to name a few. The one and perhaps only thing all these cultures have in common is the Spanish language.</p><p>Several years ago, well before the 2016 presidential election, I got into a conversation with a white guy during a long train ride. We got along well until the subject of language came up. He mentioned that there were people seriously studying Klingon, a pretend language invented for the Star Trek movies. I suggested that perhaps their time would be better spent learning a real language such as Spanish. He reacted almost as if I had made a disparaging remark about his mother. </p></div><div>Showing his discontent with Hispanic people and his disapproval of the amount of Spanish he was subjected to on a daily basis he said: "If only these people would learn to assimilate and speak English..." although I don't think he said it quite so politely. </div><div><br /></div><div>Fortunately, we had just about reached our destination and soon parted ways.</div><div><br /></div><div>Unfortunately, many Americans are under the mistaken impression that the majority of Hispanic people in the U.S. do not speak English and have not adequately integrated themselves into American society.</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="English proficiency of Hispanic population in the U.S., 2021 | Pew Research Center" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Here's a link</span></b></a> from the Pew Research Center that proves otherwise. </div><div><b style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/09/11/latinos-are-more-likely-to-believe-in-the-american-dream-but-most-say-it-is-hard-to-achieve/" target="_blank">Here's another.</a></b></div><div><br /></div><div>Having said that, I realize the impossible position Latinos find themselves in this country. For generations they have been pilloried for not speaking English well enough, and now the ones that do are shamed for not speaking Spanish well enough. </div><div><br /></div><div>I guess you just can't win.</div><div><br /></div><div>But there is another factor involved, race. To illustrate I'll use another example from popular culture of the past. </div><div> </div><div>Lucille Ball was already a star before the creation of the television show that bore her name: <i>I Love Lucy,</i> perhaps the most successful program in television history. The show was created to be the TV version of the radio program, "My Favorite Husband" where Ball played alongside Richard Denning as her eponymous husband.</div><div><br /></div><div>For the TV version, Ball insisted that Denning's roll be played by her real-life husband, Cuban American bandleader Desi Arnaz. CBS, the network that was to produce the program, balked at the idea of presenting a show featuring the mixed marriage of an "all American girl", and a "Latin man". Despite the network's objections, Ball and Arnaz were able to convince the sponsors, the tobacco company Phillip Morris, that the idea of pairing two individuals from different backgrounds could fly on broadcast TV.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>I Love Lucy</i> was groundbreaking for several reasons, not the least of which was its depiction of a cross-cultural marriage, a subject barely touched upon in popular culture at the time, even though it was becoming more and more a reality in American life, my parents being an example. The show also played a role in popularizing Latin American culture with the general American public. </div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, Desi Arnaz was white.</div><div><br /></div><div>Were he black like the great Cuban bandleader and singer <span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ojytcx7cabQ" target="_blank">Benny Moré</a></b></span>, or of mixed heritage, the show would never have gotten off the ground. That kind of pairing in popular culture would have to wait another decade and even to this day, the issue still fraught with unease and difficulty, at least in some circles.</div><div><br /></div><div>The truth is, it's all about race. </div><div> </div><div><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2021/11/04/majority-of-latinos-say-skin-color-impacts-opportunity-in-america-and-shapes-daily-life/" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Again from the Pew Research Center</span></b></a>: <br /></div><blockquote><div><i>A majority (62%) of Hispanic adults say having a darker skin color hurts
Hispanics’ ability to get ahead in the United States today at least a
little. A similar share (59%) say having a lighter skin color helps
Hispanics get ahead. And 57% say skin color shapes their daily life
experiences a lot or some, with about half saying discrimination based
on race or skin color is a “very big problem” in the U.S. today,
according to Pew Research Center’s National Survey of Latinos, a
bilingual, national survey of 3,375 Hispanic U.S. adults conducted in
March 2021.</i></div></blockquote><div><b style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/05/02/latinos-experience-discrimination-from-other-latinos-about-as-much-as-from-non-latinos/" target="_blank">Latinos in this country also face discrimination from other Latinos:</a></b></div><div><b style="color: #2b00fe;"></b><blockquote><i><b style="color: #2b00fe;"> </b>About a quarter of Latino adults say they have personally experienced
discrimination or unfair treatment from other Latinos. Having darker
skin and being born outside the United States are associated with an
increased chance of experiencing this type of discrimination, according
to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in March 2021. At the same
time, Latinos say they are as likely to experience discrimination or
unfair treatment from non-Latinos as from fellow Latinos, regardless of
skin color or their country of birth.</i></blockquote></div><div>Racial discrimination and the poverty stemming from the lack of opportunities for people of color is not unique to the United States<b>,</b><b style="color: #2b00fe;"> <a href="https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/race-and-poverty-latin-america-addressing-development-needs-african-descendants" target="_blank">this from the United Nations Chronicle:</a></b></div><div></div><blockquote><div><i>What is rarely mentioned is that most (Latin American) nations still
confront deeply seated racial inequality and discrimination that impacts
all aspects of economic and social life...</i></div><div><i> </i></div><div><i>Data illustrates that race continues to be one of the most persistent
predictors of poverty in the Americas, which is particularly troubling
because African descendant populations tend to speak their nation's
language as their mother tongues -- whether it is Spanish or Portuguese
-- and are in close proximity to urban, coastal, port or mining areas,
which tend to be centres for employment and economic growth
opportunities. </i></div></blockquote><div>A few years ago, I told a Latina friend that I had resumed studying Spanish forty years after I took it in high school. She gave me a sly look and said: "Spanish is the language of the colonizers, what you really should be studying is Quechua", one of the languages of the Inca civilization.</div><div><br /></div><div>Romantic and wildly impractical to be sure, especially given my lack of language learning acumen, but my friend brings up a good point.</div><div><br /></div><div>If helping preserve a heritage is your intent, why learn Spanish? Spanish, just like English, Portuguese and French, is merely one of the lingua francas of the Americas, languages of power, authority and subjugation. The majority of people in North and South America can trace their own heritage, (not very far back in some cases like my own), to people who had no connection to any of those languages. </div><div> </div><div>Great cultures existed in this hemisphere before the arrival of the Europeans who did everything in their power to wipe them out. They mostly succeeded. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Fortunately, they couldn't wipe out the people, many of whom in addition to facing discrimination of their own, are struggling today to preserve the remnants of their Pre-Columbian cultures, the most tangible symbol of which is their language. Sadly, thousands of indigenous languages have become extinct and most of those that survive are in danger of the same fate. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>On the other hand, the last time I checked, testimony to the tremendous success of, second only to Great Britain's, Spain's rapacious appetite for conquest: </div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Spanish is the fourth most spoken language in the world. </li><li>Just behind Spain itself, the United States ranks number five in the world's nations in the number of Spanish speakers. </li><li>Mexico is number one.</li><li>75 percent of Latin Americans in the United States claim to be at least somewhat fluent in the Spanish language. </li><li>The U.S. Census Bureau predicts that the Hispanic population of the United States will reach 111.2 million, nearly double that of the Hispanic population of the last census. </li></ul><div>In other words, Spanish is not an endangered language by a long shot, not in the United States, not in the rest of the world, and especially not in Mexico.</div><div> </div><div>So it would appear the appropriate response to the anchors over at ESPN Deportes who were so bothered by the young Mexican fan of El Tri not speaking Spanish well enough is the following:</div><p>No se preocupen chicos, ¡siempre tendremos español!</p><p><br /></p><div>As promised at the top of this post, here is my entirely irrelevant opinion:<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Should Latin American parents living in the United States teach their children Spanish? </div><div>Of course they should! </div><div>If they want to that is.</div><div><br /></div><div>Should no sabo kids learn the language of their ancestors?</div><div>Definitely!</div><div><div>If they would like to.</div><div><br /></div></div><div>Should Hispanic people be shamed for not speaking Spanish?</div><div>Absolutely not. </div><div>Period. </div><div><br /></div><div>After all, south of the Rio Grande and in the nations of the Caribbean, you won't hear people referring to themselves as "Hispanic" or "Latino" or any of its derivatives, as those categories have U.S. origins.</div><div><br /></div><div>Instead you will hear "mexicano", "boriqua", "guatemalteco", "venezolano", and other Spanish and indigenous words (properly not capitalized here), adjectives describing the people and cultures of Latin America.*</div><div> </div><div>What this means is that Hispanic, or if you prefer, Latino culture, is primarily an American** and Canadian culture.</div><div><br /></div><div>What THAT means is that Latino culture is a mixture of the cultures of ALL of Latin America (including the non-Spanish speaking parts), on top of the already diverse cultures of the U.S. and Canada. Would you call that diversity squared or diversity cubed?<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>That to me is wonderfully mind-blowing.</div><div><br /></div><div>Even more exciting is that Hispanic/Latino culture is a work in progress, evolving before our very eyes. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>It may not be to everyone's liking but fortunately, at least for me, the "typical" white bread America of <i>Leave it to Beaver</i> (to use another pop culture reference), doesn't exist anymore, if it ever did. </div><div><br /></div><div>We are a diverse lot and that is something to embrace, not to fear. Of all the groups who call our country and Canada home, (hopefully no one objects to me conflating the two), by far the most diverse is <i>el pueblo Latino. </i></div><div><br /></div><div>What diversity means, or should mean, is that everybody gets the chance to be him or herself, ideally without being judged. That kind of liberty is still the great promise of U.S. and Canadian culture. We may still be a long way from there, but despite the recent hiccups, that's the trajectory we've been heading in for quite some time. </div><div><br /></div><div>As the most diverse community in an already diverse culture, in my humble opinion, <i>el pueblo latino</i> should and usually does lead the way as far as embracing its heritage(s) ALONG WITH the diversity of its people, including their language(s) of preference whether they be Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, one or more of the plethora of indigenous languages, or any combination therein.</div><div><br /></div><div>That is indeed something to celebrate. </div><div><br /></div><div>¡Feliz Mes de la Herencia Hispana!</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>CODA</div><div><p>* There are Latin American people in this country who still refer to themselves by their or their ancestors' country of origin, yet the generic terms of "Hispanic" and "Latino" are becoming more common, thanks largely to the U.S. Census Bureau. Answering the call for the government to provide more resources for Americans of Latin American descent, in 1980 the bureau decided to create a new race category on their forms, adding to their previous list which was then limited to "black", "white", and the ever popular, "other".</p><p>Thus, the category "Hispanic" was born. As one might guess, the term Hispanic is problematic as the word implies people who speak Spanish, therefore it is not inclusive of all the people from Latin America, which is not exclusively Spanish speaking. Brazil is an example, Haiti another.</p><p>Enter the term "Latino" which was adopted by the U.S. government in 1997 to be inclusive of all people with Latin American connections regardless of language spoken, even presumably the hundreds of indigenous languages that have absolutely nothing to do with Latin, the origin of the colonial languages of Latin America.</p><p>But Latino has its problems too. Spanish is a highly gender binary language where all nouns including inanimate objects are assigned a gender. So, in traditional Spanish we would refer to men as Latino and women, Latina. Infuriating to modern sensibilities, a mixed group of men and women, even if there are many women and only one man, defaults to the masculine Latino. There are also people who do not wish to be identified by any gender. </p><p>One way to address this issue is the introduction of the non-binary term "Latinx" (pronounced "Latin - ex") which has become accepted in some circles. However, Latinx is a word that would never occur in the Spanish language, consequently it is offensive to the sensibilities of many native Spanish speakers who accuse users of it as culturally appropriating Spanish by anglicizing the word. The more Spanish sounding Latine has been proposed but it hasn't really caught on. Likewise Latin@ (not quite sure how to pronounce that one), which looks like it was taken from standard Martian.</p><p>As there is no consensus in the community regarding the best word to describe itself, I decided in this post to use the terms Latin American, Hispanic and Latino(a) interchangeably.</p><p>** By "American" here I'm referring to the United States of America, another topic of controversy. People from Latin America understandably object to the adjective "American" specifically pertaining to the United States. After all, they live in America too. Unfortunately, in English we don't have any other adjective describing the U.S. Spanish does, the rather awkward <i>estadounidense, </i>which translates literally to United Statesian. What do you think?</p></div><div>The argument for keeping American to describe a person living in the United States is that this is the only country in all of the Americas, with the word America in its official name. For that reason, I use it whenever necessary.</div><div><br /></div>James Iskahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219990004487304003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5271409126833086486.post-89240747063977785172023-09-28T17:25:00.022-05:002023-10-01T08:10:00.873-05:00A Quick Post Mortem<p>In the "I watched it so you won't have to category", here are some quick thoughts on the winners and losers of last night's Republican Presidential Debate:</p><p>A winner, sort of: Tim Scott, who sleepwalked through the first debate last month, woke up last night and scored a few points by directly going after some of his rivals on the stage. He took swipes, as did practically everyone else, at Vivek Ramaswamy on his business dealings with China, and at Ron DeSantis on his state's controversial guidelines for history education. That exchange produced the highest moment of gravitas in the evening when Scott who is black said: "there is not a redeeming quality in slavery." He said that because the Florida guidelines put in place by DeSantis <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="http://jamesiska.blogspot.com/2023/08/a-little-context-please.html" target="_blank">suggest there was.</a></span></b><br /></p><p>This led to a brief discourse by the junior senator from South Carolina on how despite the injustice and depravity of the institution, black people in this country survived slavery, discrimination, poll taxes and literacy tests "woven into the laws of our country." He went on saying that black people have had a much harder time surviving Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" and the welfare system it produced which according to Scott, did much to destroy the black family and create a permanent underclass. This is a classic, traditional conservative argument that will certainly win him some votes as much as bring out the <a href="https://newrepublic.com/post/175832/tim-scott-slavery-welfare-black-americans-republican-debate" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b>the wrath of the left. </b></span></a><br /></p><p>Scott looked downright silly though when he challenged his former mentor Nikki Haley about expensive curtains she supposedly bought for her office at the UN when she became the U.S. Ambassador. Haley correctly pointed out that the curtains preceeded her. "Did you send them back?" was Scott's response. </p><p>A loser: I was less than impressed with Mike Pence this time, perhaps because I over-estimated him after his last debate performance. While he thanked the moderators for every question sent his way, more often than not he refused to answer those questions. He is however the surprise winner of my bat-shit crazy idea award, when he proposed as a solution to mass shootings, a fast track to execution for the perps.</p><p>Runner up to that award and clear-cut winner of my constitution schmonstitution award is Ramaswamy's plan to eliminate birthright citizenship in the United States, something that is guaranteed in Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment. </p><p>Best line of the evening goes to Nikki Haley for this response to Vivek Ramaswamy: "honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say." Second best line goes to moderator Dana Parino. I don't remember the exact line but after one of Mike Pence's many end runs around one of her questions, she interrupted him saying, "yes that's great Mr. Vice President but what about (then she restated the original question)", which again, he failed to answer.<br /></p><p>Biggest lost opportunity of the evening goes to there being not one mention of the exPOTUS's recent comment about executing the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Oh, wait a minute, this debate was hosted by FOX News, how silly of me. As if...</p><p>OK the biggest lost opportunity goes to Ron DeSantis for once again failing to man up and just, as Tim Scott suggested, drop the line that suggests that people benefited from slavery from his school guidelines. Instead, while intentionally mispronouncing her name, DeSantis claimed the whole issue was dreamed up by Kamala Harris. No, it wasn't Ron, it's right there in black and white, if you'd only bother to read the guidelines you insisted forcing upon the schools in your state. <br /></p><p>The lamest attempt at humor goes hands down to Chris Christie for two clunkers. First was his comment that went something like this: "Trump ducks out of these debates so much we're gonna start calling him Donald Duck." If he had said it like that it may have sounded a little funnier but he added a lot of words between the ducking out part and the punchline so that if you were drifting off like I was, you might have missed the connection. "Oh I get it!" I said to myself this morning when I heard it replayed on the radio 10 hours after the fact, once again proving that in comedy, timing is everything. </p><p>The other was his rather cringy line reacting to the problem with education in this country: "Joe Biden is literally in bed with a member of a teachers union" (his wife). </p><p>Bad humor plus a real slap in the face to union members including this new union member, makes Christie in my book, the biggest loser of the evening. <br /></p><p>The I still can't remember his name without looking it up award goes to, wait a minute...oh yeah, goes to Doug Burgum. </p><p>Once again I have to say the overall winner of this race to second place in the Republican primary goes to Nikki Haley who so far at least, seems able to run circles around the rest of the competition in a debate. In marked contrast to her last appearance where she appeared to be looking ahead to the general election by talking about consensus and reasonable goals, this time she went all in on the issues Republicans want to hear such as border security and energy independence (there is no such thing by the way). She went in lockstep with DeSantis and his idea to send troops into Mexico to stop illegal immigration and the flow of fentanyl. She even out-flanked DeSantis to the right when she challenged him on his resistance to fracking and off-shore drilling in his state. In characteristic fashion, rather than reasonably explaining his position, DeSantis huffed, puffed and shrugged it off, claiming Haley was wrong. </p><p>She wasn't. <br /></p><p>Many pundits are claiming that these candidates slugging it out against each other in a race they know they can't win are auditioning for vice president. Some of them perhaps are, such as Ramaswamy whom I imagine would be thrilled to be Donald Trump's second fiddle. I'm betting that DeSantis is still going for all the marbles in this go around, and sticking to my call <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="http://jamesiska.blogspot.com/2023/09/and-then-she-raised-her-hand.html" target="_blank">in a previous post </a></span></b>that Haley is running for the 2028 nomination. Trump would be wise to pick her as his running mate if he wants to actually win the general election fair and square, but I think he's looking for more of a toady, someone without a shred of integrity like Marjorie Taylor Greene or Matt Goetz to do his bidding and nothing else. </p><p>For her part, being Trump's running mate would be a lose-lose proposition for Nikki Haley. If a Trump/Haley ticket should lose in the general election, that probably would not bode well for her future aspirations. If they win, she would more than likely end up being the next Mike Pence, which would be even worse. </p><p>As for Mike Pence, well I don't think he's looking to be the next Mike Pence either. </p><p>Nikki Haley certainly understands that things have not worked out well for anyone who has ever gotten close to Donald Trump, and she'd be foolish to accept the offer if it comes her way.</p><p>I think she's way too smart for that. </p><p>But I wouldn't bet money on it, I could be wrong, I certainly have been before. <br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGJvqfWSlGKNjYnwmOV6Y-UuB4phHWvKk28GlOIjjTMvTlcr3bWkOCxoKIZNGWB5vvfN5dKWYwla66lyMjZILjMR6DASp8o-wSbQt2vyjOGoE-7EhCcyE3LcP-P8lAECj-vQwW5ROXvcfQyUfDAYKtL-Bs81QKRlKe0NJvIeMe3N6e8MF1mf4fd4Yo090/s474/debate.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="266" data-original-width="474" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGJvqfWSlGKNjYnwmOV6Y-UuB4phHWvKk28GlOIjjTMvTlcr3bWkOCxoKIZNGWB5vvfN5dKWYwla66lyMjZILjMR6DASp8o-wSbQt2vyjOGoE-7EhCcyE3LcP-P8lAECj-vQwW5ROXvcfQyUfDAYKtL-Bs81QKRlKe0NJvIeMe3N6e8MF1mf4fd4Yo090/s320/debate.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>Let the good times roll.</p>James Iskahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219990004487304003noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5271409126833086486.post-32737238287967155712023-09-16T01:00:00.019-05:002023-10-01T08:18:36.283-05:00Saving Democracy from Itself?<p>During the reign of the 45th president of the U.S., I often contemplated who would have made a better chief executive. One of the many candidates was my cat.</p><div>"That's ridiculous..." you say, "a cat can't be president." </div><div> </div><div>Really? Well, here's what Article II, Section I, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution has to say on the matter:</div><div></div><blockquote><div><i>No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.</i></div></blockquote><div>Notice the restrictions apply only to persons. It says nothing about similar restrictions applying to cats, dogs or any other animal, vegetable or mineral. </div><div><br /></div><div>In other words, nowhere in the Constitution does it explicitly stipulate that the President of the United States has to be a human being.</div><div><br /></div><div>So why can't my cat Ziggy serve as president? And if the logic of many Americans holds true, if I were able to convince a critical mass of my fellow citizens that Ziggy would indeed be a fine president and got her onto the ballot, wouldn't it be considered "election interference" if people sued to get her off the ballot, claiming she was ineligible to run for president due to her catness?</div><div><br /></div><div>Yes, that is ridiculous, but not a whole lot more ridiculous that a convicted felon serving time in prison being elected president, something the Constitution also doesn't mention. I guess the Founding Fathers must have assumed Americans would be smart enough to not consider voting for pets or incarcerated criminals for president, so they didn't bother with those stipulations. </div><div><br /></div><div>A cat being president is also not much more far-fetched than a president who took an oath to support the Constitution, blatantly violating that oath while in office, then expecting to be eligible to be president again. The U.S. Constitution does say something about that:</div><div><blockquote><i><b>No person shall</b> be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or <b>hold any office, civil or military, under the United States</b>, or under any State, <b>who, having previously taken an oath</b>, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State,<b> to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same</b>, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.</i></blockquote></div><div>If you've been paying attention to the news lately, this text, Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, (here with my added emphasis) should be familiar. </div><div><br /></div><div>If you haven't been paying attention, calls from a wide range of folks representing different ideologies and political parties, have brought up that Article Three of the Fourteenth Amendment, also referred to as a "Disqualification Clause", clearly states that because of his actions on January 6th, 2021, Donald Trump is ineligible to be president again, short of two thirds of both chambers of Congress voting to reinstate his eligibility, an unlikely scenario.</div><div><br /></div><div>As you can imagine, like the four criminal indictments encompassing 91 felony counts of wrongdoing that preceded the calls to declare him ineligible for office, the exPOTUS has dismissed the proposition as nothing more than an act of "election interference." Here's a quote from one of his campaign spokespeople:</div><blockquote><i>The people who are pursuing this absurd conspiracy theory and political attack on President Trump are stretching the law beyond recognition much like the political prosecutors in New York, Georgia, and D.C.</i></blockquote><p>I'm not sure what any of this has to do with a "conspiracy theory" or even a "political attack". Section Three is unequivocal and at least according to my non-legal mind, it is not stretching the law one bit when it comes to applying it to Trump who.... </p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>took an oath on January 20, 2017 to preserve. protect and defend the Constitution of the United States then...</li><li>following his reelection loss, took extraordinary measures to remain in power, all the while misleading the American public (those who would listen) by claiming without any evidence that the election was a fraud, then...</li><li>as a last-ditch effort to remain in office, summoned thousands of people who believed his lie to the U.S. Capitol to interfere with the formal certification of his opponent, and petitioned his Vice President to violate his proscribed constitutional duty to officially confirm the results of the election, then... </li><li>did nothing when many of his supporter/rioters stormed the Capitol, even after they chanted to hang the vice president.</li></ul><div>None of these acts are disputed. While the facts of the case could be challenged in a court of law as worthy of constituting <b>criminal</b> incitement of an insurrection, the majority of both chambers of Congress in bi-partisan votes agreed that Donald Trump did in fact, incite an insurrection. </div><div><br /></div><div>Regardless of one's take on the matter, there can be no doubt that without the president's lie of a stolen election and his call to fight it in his speech earlier that day, the dreadful events of January 6, 2021 would never have happened. The kicker is this: once the protest got out of hand and the Capitol was attacked and vandalized leaving dozens of Capitol Police officers and others severely injured, some of those injuries resulting in death, despite having the power to stop the violence and bloodshed by a simple tweet telling his supporter/rioters to cease and desist participating in an uprising against the government, he chose to remain silent and enabled the occupation of our Capitol to go on for hours.</div><div><br /></div><div>If that does not constitute "engaging in an insurrection" I don't know what does.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now let's see: taking an oath to defend the constitution, then engaging in an insurrection, put the two together and what do you have? According to our Constitution, ineligibility to hold office. So simple, a first grader could understand it. Heck even Ziggy the cat who is not particularly bright, even by feline standards, might understand it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Donald Trump and his supporters don't or won't understand it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, the question arises if declaring Trump ineligible is worth pursuing. </div><div> </div><div>Author, staff writer for the <i>Atlantic, </i>and former Republican speechwriter (but no fan of Trump by a longshot), <b>David Frum</b>, argues it is not. In his August 29th article for the publication titled, <i>The Fourteenth Amendment Fallacy: The Constitution won’t disqualify Trump from running. The only real-world way of stopping him is through the ballot box., </i>Frum argues that the move to disqualify the former president is little more than a stunt based upon a heretofore obscure section of the Constitution intended specifically to prevent Confederate politicians from holding office in the post-Civil War South. Because of that, Frum claims that Section Three has little bearing today. Much better he contends, that the issue of Trump be settled at the polls. </div><div><br /></div><div>The real problem in Frum's mind are the repercussions that would result if the move to disqualify Trump would succeed. Would his supporters Frum asks, reject the results of a general election where their candidate lost because his name was left off the ballots in select states? *</div><div> </div><div>Considering Trump supporters have already rejected the results of the 2020 election, probably the most scrutinized election in American history, the potential 2024 rejection Frum suggests is a forgone conclusion.</div><br />Frum goes on:<br /><blockquote><i>the use of the section to debar candidates would not stop at Trump. It would become a dangerously convenient tool of partisan politics...</i><div><div><i><br /></i></div><i>If Section 3 can be reactivated in this way, then reactivated it will be. Republicans will hunt for Democrats to disqualify, and not only for president, but for any race where Democrats present someone who said or did something that can be represented as “aid and comfort” to enemies of the United States.</i></div></blockquote><div><div><div>Well guess what?</div><div> </div><div>The Republicans have been hunting for Democrats to disqualify for years. <br /></div><div> </div><div>Here are just some recent examples:<br /></div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>As we speak there is a movement underway in the House of Representatives to impeach Joe Biden. On what grounds you ask? "Don't worry, we'll think of something" is the general response. </li><li>Trumplicans in Georgia are seeking to impeach Fulton Country District Attorney <b>Fani Willis</b> for doing her job in her role in the prosecution of Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants in their attempts to defraud that state's election process.</li><li><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://theconversation.com/wisconsin-gops-impeachment-threat-against-state-supreme-court-justice-is-unsupported-by-law-and-would-undermine-judicial-independence-213194" target="_blank">There's something even more sinister going on up in Wisconsin</a></span></b> where newly elected State Supreme Court Justice <b>Janet Protasiewicz</b> is threatened by impeachment by the Republican legislature because she refuses to recuse herself from a gerrymandering case that benefits those same Republicans. Their grounds are that she called the newly Republican drawn legislative map, "rigged" in public during her election, admittedly not wise but certainly not grounds for impeachment, according to precedent in that state. Silencing her, which is a distinct possibility, will allow them to keep their map that has more twists and turns than Chubby Checker in a blender, (sorry, I couldn't resist), thereby ensuring minority rule in the state for at least another decade.</li></ul></div><div>The reality is this: if the "disqualification clause" is invoked, nothing will change, it would only be one more weapon in the Republicans' toolbox to hold on to power by dismantling our democracy. </div><div> </div><div>The other day, Frum was featured in an NPR interview with <b>Kim Whele</b>, a constitutional scholar from the University of Baltimore. Whele is of the opinion that it's worth a shot to attempt to disqualify Trump: <br /></div></div><div><div><blockquote> <i>...there's a faith in the electoral process that perhaps
has failed us in this moment... the framers of the Constitution
did include Section 3... I don't have
confidence that it's worth the gamble to see if the process is going to
work in the old-fashioned way, in getting people out to vote and having,
in this instance, the front-runner with 60% of the Republican voter
base... (and) hope at the edge of our seats that democracy is going
to prevail and not put someone like (Trump) in office. Because in my view,
if that happens, it's over.</i></blockquote> </div><div>I don't quite see eye-to-eye with Whele either, as she appears to be saying here that democracy is great when it yields acceptable results, but we need to shift course when it doesn't. In other words: we need to save democracy from itself.</div><div> </div><div>I think she's missing a huge point which is this: democracy is never absolute; it is governed by rules. If the majority of the American people voted to bring back slavery, that would be a non-starter because of the <span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b><a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-13/" target="_blank">Thirteenth Amendment</a></b>. </span></div><div> </div><div>As we saw above, the Constitution, while it doesn't explicitly exclude cats from serving as president, (maybe we'll have to do something about that someday), does restrict the office to people over 35 and naturally born U.S. citizens. Which means that Congressman <b>Maxwell Frost</b>, currently 26 years old, and former Governor <b>Arnold Schwarzenegger</b>, born in Austria to Austrians, would both be ineligible to serve as president, for now at least in Frost's case. And the <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-22/" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Twenty-Second Amendment</span></b></a> disqualifies Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama from serving third terms. Are any of those disqualifications, examples of unjust election interference or threats to our democracy? Certainly not, they're just the rules. </div><div><br /></div><div>It should not matter in the slightest that Article Three of the Fourteenth Amendment has not been used to date to disqualify someone from the presidency. It is as much a part of the Constitution as any other. It's not a new-fangled strategy to get rid of someone we don't like, but rather a very sensible rule proscribed by the Constitution 155 years ago that keeps elected officials, including presidents, from abusing their power by violating the will of the people and attempting to overthrow the government. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>What a novel idea.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>CODA</div><div><br /></div><div>* Here Frum is assuming the move to disqualify Trump would happen after the Republican nomination, leaving Republican voters out in the cold with a candidate who would ultimately be declared ineligible to serve. I agree that would be unreasonable. However, the Republican Convention is a little less than a year away and Republican voters have a large field of candidates to choose from who are not criminal defendants that engaged in an insurrection to overthrow the government. I'd say at least five of them have as good a chance to win the 2024 general election as Donald Trump, which is to say, not a very good chance. And there is one Republican candidate who in my book at least, has a very good chance to win the general election in 2024. You can read <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="http://jamesiska.blogspot.com/2023/09/and-then-she-raised-her-hand.html" target="_blank">my previous post</a></span></b> to see which one. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'd say it is incumbent upon those who are of the opinion that Section Three should be invoked, and can do something about it, to act quickly and let the matter be decided by the Supreme Court before the nomination process begins. If the Court agrees that Trump is ineligible to serve as president again, then Republicans will only have themselves to blame if they choose the one candidate of the bunch who cannot serve. </div><div><br /></div><div>If the Court does not agree, all we can do then is rely on the wisdom and common sense of the American electorate. </div><div> </div><div>Because without either of those, one day we might end up with this: </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-7x7yp6FpPjb4Drv36K_o38Ig2ZRm1ei5Vdw3E7qkjW4_bIVy25HTT-ZjSt52tEozy_OqE3tLHGxboWDvqmPk9qKiLSmgfM77NpA6i5maFsC-IJGLhDZjfck9lc9ntrRWkzgrIQRW3YFpZQMp_KfOG7WY7ppbEac4q202iLN3H6x3lHIDNv3VoXLOgjY/s2200/Ziggy2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1629" data-original-width="2200" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-7x7yp6FpPjb4Drv36K_o38Ig2ZRm1ei5Vdw3E7qkjW4_bIVy25HTT-ZjSt52tEozy_OqE3tLHGxboWDvqmPk9qKiLSmgfM77NpA6i5maFsC-IJGLhDZjfck9lc9ntrRWkzgrIQRW3YFpZQMp_KfOG7WY7ppbEac4q202iLN3H6x3lHIDNv3VoXLOgjY/w400-h296/Ziggy2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> </div><div><br /></div><br /><div><br /></div><p></p></div>James Iskahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219990004487304003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5271409126833086486.post-7899749830416304542023-09-08T07:40:00.005-05:002023-09-09T19:30:13.975-05:00And Then She Raised Her Hand<p>A couple weeks ago I said to a co-worker that the night before I had done the geekiest of things, I watched the Republican Presidential Debate in its entirety. "Why would you do that?" she asked. Siting a bit of ancient wisdom filtered through Michael Corleone I responded: "because it's good to keep your friends close and your enemies closer."</p><p>But in all seriousness, while I may never vote for any of these candidates for anything, ever, I always find it a good idea to keep an open mind because as I've pointed out in this space time and again, I might actually learn something.</p><p>There were a few surprises for me this go around. Perhaps the biggest was the number of times the word "woke" was mentioned by Ron DeSantis in the debate, zero. It seemed clear in this reboot of his campaign, the third or fourth (I've lost count), his handlers must have advised him that his incessant use of the term had become tiresome. That bit of advice was sound. </p><p>I do question his general approach to the debate however. He seemed like a carnival automaton, whenever called upon by the moderators, it was as if they were putting coins into the slot, and out would come a diatribe on one the of talking points near and dear to the hearts of the limited scope of Americans he hopes to attract. </p><p>You could tell he was playing to the crowd with lines such as leaving drug cartel members "stone cold dead."</p><p>Unfortunately, for the Americans whom he is not trying to attract, stone cold dead best describes the feelings they have for him. To them, me included, Ron DeSantis is Donald Trump without the charm. </p><p>Vivek Ramaswamy's star both rose and fell, depending upon which side you're on. He was certainly the most visible and audible of all the folks on the stage in Milwaukee that night, in both the number of words coming out of his mouth, and those coming out of his opponents attacking him. As his hero the exPOTUS, Ramaswamy understands that any attention, good or bad, works in his favor. </p><p>He spent an endless amount of time talking in circles uttering nonsense, proving himself to be the true heir apparent to the former president. I must say though, he was slick, he handled the barbs coming his way from Mike Pence, Nikki Haley and especially Chris Christie with aplomb with perfectly timed comebacks. But I suspect his comment that Climate Change is a hoax didn't win him any support outside of the MAGA base, or even inside it with younger voters. It was certainly a deal breaker for a large segment of Americans. </p><p>I thought Mike Pence gave a solid performance, perhaps because I didn't have particularly high expectations for him. He had the best one-liner of the evening when asked if presidents over a certain age should be required to take a mental competency test. Pence dispensed with that thought by saying perhaps everyone in Washington should be asked to take one. He made a good case convincing at least some of the MAGA faithful that he did the right thing on January 6th. When confronted by the question of Pence's actions on that fateful day, most of the candidates on the stage talked around the issue but at least grudgingly paid lip service to the former vice president. The exception was Chris Christie who said unequivocally that Americans owe Pence a great deal of gratitude. <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://jamesiska.blogspot.com/2021/09/dan-quayle-elder-stateman-and-defender.html" target="_blank">He's right.</a></span></b></p><p>Speaking of Christie, his role along with Asa Hutchinson (interestingly positioned together on the far left of the dais) as flies-in-the-ointment, attacking the former president, made them persona-non-grata among the highly partisan MAGA audience, drawing jeers and boos every time they opened their mouths. Christie was a little disappointing, probably because the opportunities to address the issue were few and far between. He had to interject his Mike Pence comment because the moderators were ready to move on to another topic before he got a chance to respond. In what seemed to be an obvious attempt by the FOX News moderators to limit Christie's time slamming the exPOTUS, late in the debate, Christie was asked about UFOs. The most memorable Christie moments were his jabs at Vivek Ramaswamy, at one point saying the 38 year old entrepreneur and presidential wannabie sounded like "ChatGPT". That made me feel really old and out of touch because I had to look up a contemporary cultural reference made by a Republican presidential candidate. </p><p>The real disappointment of the night was Tim Scott who didn't manage to set himself apart from the pack in any way, shape or form. The biggest response to one of his remarks came when he stridently proclaimed that his first act as president would be to fire Attorney General Merrick Garland. Of course, being a Cabinet position, every new president appoints a new AG, so saying that is like saying the first thing he would do after being sworn in is give a speech. Duh.</p><p>North Dakota Governor Doug Bergum seemed like a nice and reasonable guy. His biggest moment came when it was revealed that he had suffered a torn Achilles tendon while (at 67), playing in a pickup basketball game in Milwaukee earlier that day. He made it through the debate, standing the whole time and turning in a respectable if not particularly memorable performance. He may not exactly be the <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHzxM69qm50" target="_blank">Willis Reed</a> </span></b>of politics, but his calm demeanor was a welcome relief from all the noise and the fact that he made it through the two-hour ordeal enduring what must have been incredible pain was impressive by itself. The dark horse candidate made himself known to everyone who watched the debate. Unfortunately, most of them have forgotten him by now. </p><p>I've given up trying to predict the future, especially the outcomes of elections. There's plenty of evidence in this space that practically right up to the 2016 election, I didn't think Donald Trump had a snowball's chance in hell of ever becoming president.</p><p>Recalling that, I'm not going to bother to predict what will happen in November, 2024.</p><p>Instead, I will offer an opinion that you can easily discount but can't possibly prove wrong which is this: if a general election for president were to be held in the coming few weeks between Joe Biden and any of the men standing on the stage in Milwaukee (and the one who didn't show up), Joe Biden would probably win.</p><p>The woman is another story.</p><p>In my book, the hands down winner of the first Republican presidential debate was Nikki Haley. I'll add this: if a general election were held today between her and the president, she could beat Joe Biden, perhaps handily. </p><p>Obviously, that's a moot point because she would have to win her party's nomination before she could run in a general election. And at least judging by the way things look now, that ain't gonna happen because A) Donald Trump is leading the polls by a whopping margin and B) Haley said little in the debate that would sway anyone in the Trump base away from him and towards her.</p><p>So how could Nikki Haley have possibly won the debate? </p><p>It's simple, because she and the dudes who participated in the debate, with the possible exception of DeSantis, are running for the 2028 nomination, not the current one. </p><p>There's the answer to the question many of us have which is why so many Republican candidates are running in an election they know they have no chance of winning.</p><p>It's the future stupid (I'm talking to myself here), and the road to the White House is a long haul that typically spans several election cycles. I can't count the number of times Joe Biden ran for president before he won in 2020*. Donald Trump was publicly talking about running for president (albeit as a pro-choice Democrat) all the way back in the eighties. His predecessor Barack Obama, while a relative newbie in the public eye, gained national attention four years before his election as a newly elected senator from Illinois in 2004 when he introduced himself to the nation by giving this <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">inspirational keynote address</span></b> to the DNC in Boston.</p><p>The cold reality is that it takes more than public support to become president, it takes money, gobs of it. The candidates we saw on that stage in Milwaukee beyond trying to get the public's attention, are all vying for funds to build up their campaign treasury. The folks with gobs of money on hand willing to contribute to a political candidate, do so because they expect some kind of payback in the end. That payback only comes if the candidate they support can actually win the general election, not just the party nomination.</p><p>Naturally the big contributors not only look for candidates who might give them something they want, but they also hedge their bets on the candidates they feel have the best chance of winning.</p><p>It was clear from her performance during the debate that Nikki Haley was looking beyond the Republican primary to the general election.</p><p>For example, Haley understands that the draconian anti-abortion stance Republicans have taken is not a winning strategy, not at the state level, even as we recently discovered in red-trending states like Kansas, Wisconsin, Ohio and others, and certainly not at the national level. </p><div>Despite classifying herself as "pro-life", Haley advocated in the debate for consensus and above all compassion on the issue. I have not heard that kind of nuance advocated by any major candidate, Democrat or Republican. She focused on the issues all Americans "should agree upon" such as contraception being readily available, the promotion of adoption, not punishing women for having abortions, not forcing doctors with moral objections to perform abortions and banning late term abortions.** She dismissed the idea of a federal ban (even though she claims to support one), because the necessity of finding 60 votes in the Senate to make that happen is simply not attainable. In response, Mike Pence said that "consensus is the opposite of leadership" implying a more authoritarian approach he would take on that issue. That stance is music to the ears of the far right and may help him in the Republican primary but will prove fatal in the general election. </div><p>Haley's personal highlight from the debate came during the topic of our Ukraine policy. Vivek Ramaswami advocated becoming closer to Vladimir Putin, suggesting we give up Eastern Ukraine to Russia, as if it were ours to give. Single-handedly taking a direct swipe at Ramaswami and an indirect swipe at her former boss the exPOTUS, his foreign policy and his love affair with the Soviet dictator, Haley said this:<br /></p><p data-t="{"n":"blueLinks"}" style="background-color: white; color: #2b2b2b; font-family: "Segoe UI", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 16px;"></p><blockquote><i>You don't do that to friends. What you do instead is you have the backs of your friends. Ukraine, it's a front line of defense... Putin has said… once Russia takes Ukraine, Poland and the Baltics are next. That's a world war. We're trying to prevent war. Look at what Putin did today. He killed Prigozhin. When I was at the U.N., the Russian ambassador suddenly died. This guy is a murderer. And you are choosing a murderer over a pro-American country.</i> </blockquote><p>Haley's schooling of Ramaswami and her implicit dig at Trump were noteworthy indeed. </p><p>It was in fact, she, not Hutchinson nor Christie who delivered the harshest blows against Trump. When the economy, especially the debt and the natural Republican impulse to blame Joe Biden and the Democrats came up, Haley said this:</p><blockquote><i>Donald Trump added 8 trillion to our debt and our kids are never going to forgive us for this. And so at the end of the day, you look at the 2024 budget, Republicans asked for 7.4 billion in earmarks, Democrats asked for 2.8 billion. So you tell me who are the big spenders.</i></blockquote><p>Later in the debate, she laid it all on the line for any Republican willing to listen:</p><blockquote><i>We have to look at the fact that three-quarters of Americans don't want a rematch between Trump and Biden. And we have to face the fact that Trump is the most disliked politician in America. We can't win a general election that way.</i></blockquote><p>So consensus building was her debate performance that the conservative Haley garnered the notice and even the tepid praise of many liberal commentators. That is, until she raised her hand in the affirmative when the question was posed of the candidates if they would support Donald Trump were he the 2024 Republican nominee AND was convicted in one or more of the 92 felony counts he's facing. That was too much to handle for most of the left of MAGA tribe where the general consensus in the end was that Nikki Haley is a hypocrite. </p><p>Is she? </p><p>Cynical as it may sound, Nikki Haley is a traditional politician, and a damned good one. Show me a politician who could never be charged with hypocrisy, and I'll show you a losing politician.</p><p>Later, when Haley was questioned about that response, she retorted it was irrelevant because <b>she </b>would be the Republican nominee in 2024, not Trump. </p><p>She has chutzpah too. </p><p>Here's my take on Haley's M.O. </p><p>She knows well that Donald Trump is more than likely to be the Republican Party's nominee for president in the 2024 election, regardless of the outcome of his plethora of legal issues.</p><p>She also figures that Trump is likely to lose the 2024 general election to Biden, just as he did in 2020. Haley and her team are banking on that and the logic that except for the most steadfast of Trump supporters, most Republicans will have to come to the conclusion that supporting the two-time loser and very likely jailbird Trump is not a good recipe for winning elections or the future of the Republican Party. </p><p>If that comes to pass, Nikki Haley may be very well situated to be the Republican standard-bearer in four years, at least compared to the folks who shared the stage with her in Milwaukee two weeks ago. If the results of the last debate are any indication, Haley proved she is capable of standing up to her opponents, often leaving them in the dust. She may not have said a lot to sway the MAGA tribe to her side, but by not discounting Trump entirely, she's shown that while she may not be MAGA, she's also not a RINO. She's also one of the very few Republican candidates who have not been on the receiving end of the wrath of the exPOTUS, thereby maintaining her street cred among the faithful. That may not be enough to help make her the Republican nominee in this cycle, but it may in the next one where the party will be theoretically focusing on someone who can actually win the general election. </p><p>History almost
guarantees that 40 percent of the voters are assured to vote for the
Republican candidate in a presidential election and 40 percent are assured to vote for the
Democrat.</p><p>That means the election comes down to convincing the remaining 20 percent of the voters who could vote either way. <br /></p><p>Nikki Haley showed the nation and potential donors that she is willing to look at the big picture beyond the ultra-right wing talking points that might be helpful to win the Republican nomination but won't work in the general election.</p><p>Issues like banning books, endless culture wars, climate change denial, embracing Vladimir Putin, punishing women for having abortions, teaching kids that black people benefited from being slaves, and a whole slew of other extreme positions, just won't cut it with the 20 percent.<br /></p><p>But won't her gesture showing tacit support for Donald Trump hurt her? </p><p>No, I don't think so. To the 40 percent Republican-or-bust voters, that gesture showed her loyalty to the Party. The twenty percent in the middle, many of whom would vote for a Republican were he or she not so extreme, will have long forgotten it. The only folks who will remember the gesture like me, are in the other forty percent and wouldn't vote for her anyway.</p><p>What I just described is only one of many possible scenarios that might take place over the next four years. For one reason or other, I won't speculate which, Trump could drop out of the election and leave the Republican nomination up for grabs. I'm not convinced Haley could pull off a nomination in this cycle, with or without Trump in the race. Or Trump could win the election in November and we may not have any more presidential elections. I say that only partly tongue-in-check. Or Trump could lose and the lunatic fringe could take complete control over the Republican Party. If that happens, all logic gets thrown out the window. </p><p>We'll just have to see.</p><p>I strongly believe that our democracy thrives with a strong two-party system. For that to work, both parties have to respect one another, to some degree at least, and agree to play by the same set of rules. Right now, one of those parties has gone off the rails and as a result, we are as divided as a nation as we have ever been. </p><p>I have lots of issues with Nikki Haley. Beyond ideology is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/29/opinion/nikki-haley-trump-2024.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">her tendency to speak out of both sides of her mouth</span></b></a> whenever it's convenient. Sometimes it's difficult to determine where she truly stands.</p><p>Given that, I can't see ever voting for her. </p><p>But I could live with a President Haley as someone with whom I could agree to disagree, as I have with all the presidents in my lifetime before the 45th one. The bottom line is I believe she is the best person the Republicans have at the moment to get their party back on track to a semblance of respectability, and perhaps the best person in either party to help bring us back together (as much as that is humanly possible) as a nation. <br /></p><p>And boy would that be a good thing.</p><p><br /></p><p>CODA</p><p>*OK I looked it up, Joe Biden ran unsuccessfully for president twice, in 1988 and in 2008. It just seems like more.</p><p>**The idea that there are several issues regarding abortion that all of us can agree upon is a little naive as all Americans do not agree that contraception should be readily available, that women should not be punished for having abortions, or that late term abortions should be banned. But I agree with her that we need to reach some kind of consensus on the issue. </p><p><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/29/opinion/nikki-haley-trump-2024.html&source=gmail&ust=1693504907789000&usg=AOvVaw1hi8lS-n8yt00AEKEJyROl" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/29/opinion/nikki-haley-trump-2024.html" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2023/<wbr></wbr>08/29/opinion/nikki-haley-<wbr></wbr>trump-2024.html</a><span style="color: #888888;"><br clear="all" /></span> </p>James Iskahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219990004487304003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5271409126833086486.post-3301015900460547622023-08-21T06:47:00.007-05:002023-08-26T07:24:43.650-05:00Schoolhouse Rock, 2023 Reboot<p>If you watched Saturday morning television in the United States between 1973 and 1984, you probably remember the educational film shorts that aired between the cartoons, known as "Schoolhouse Rock." Those animated segments featuring cheeky commentary set to catchy music, focused on specific themes in the areas of mathematics, science, social studies and grammar. I was a little old for them but one segment that immediately comes to mind was called <i>Conjunction Junction</i> which you can watch <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://youtu.be/4AyjKgz9tKg" target="_blank">here</a></span></b>. Another was about how laws are made in Congress called <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgVKvqTItto" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">I'm Just a Bill</span></b>.</a></i></p><p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibfSlkkpauXEhmsG822vUJNDOOqbQ38fzDR4gUXKzP8ahA6_1ihGzOpyxnOLQ33kWtUVwTIA4beE6X4VBN8Gp-FUaIxLAGKNKWzkzFvXey7Wdovq8mOXTix_kV6R4a0Gy_Oiov8rfiS5sZ4C-RZE2jmYDdT32occAAoZ2_DCDGSycE0C7oo5l-bTkKxMU/s1501/IMG_1628.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="834" data-original-width="1501" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibfSlkkpauXEhmsG822vUJNDOOqbQ38fzDR4gUXKzP8ahA6_1ihGzOpyxnOLQ33kWtUVwTIA4beE6X4VBN8Gp-FUaIxLAGKNKWzkzFvXey7Wdovq8mOXTix_kV6R4a0Gy_Oiov8rfiS5sZ4C-RZE2jmYDdT32occAAoZ2_DCDGSycE0C7oo5l-bTkKxMU/s320/IMG_1628.jpg" width="320" /></a></i></div>It's probably safe to say an entire generation of Americans remember the concepts they learned on Schoolhouse Rock better than the ones they learned at school.<p></p><p>Today, while we're falling behind the rest of the world when it comes to our knowledge of math, science and language skills, Americans are getting a full-blown education in social studies, at least in terms of American law and government, thanks the hottest show around, featuring the escapades of one former president and his multiple run-ins with the law. </p><p>Of course, like Saturday morning cartoons, the wall-to-wall media coverage of the travails of the exPOTUS is not to everyone's taste. To others such as myself, it's like a train wreck we can't turn our eyes from. </p><p>Lucky for us because it provides a valuable lesson reminding us of many things we forgot from school about the Constitution, American politics and jurisprudence.</p><p>A lot of Americans myself included, may only have spotty knowledge about our Constitution, but we sure think we know a lot about its First Amendment, especially the part guaranteeing our freedom of speech. </p><p>We all understand, or so I hope, that freedom of speech/expression is one of the linchpins of any democracy.</p><p>But we're learning, thanks in part to this version of Schoolhouse Rock, that like all freedoms, freedom of speech does not come without responsibilities. One cannot express a controversial opinion for example and expect it to be immune from consequences such as harsh judgement, public humiliation or even (in some cases) the loss of a job, just to name a few.</p><p>Nor is it absolute. The First Amendment itself does not enumerate limits to speech. That has been the role of the Supreme Court and over two centuries of precedent. </p><p>Here are just some of the categories of speech that the Court has deemed not protected by the First Amendment. Engaging in them can land you into serious trouble with the law:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Speech that violates intellectual property rights: You can't use someone else's speech or ideas and claim them as your own. </li><li>True threats: Statements that can reasonably be construed as an intent to inflict harm on the recipient. </li><li>Fighting Words: Statements that can reasonably be construed as intending to provoke a violent response.</li><li>Child pornography: No explanation necessary. <br /></li><li>Incitement: Speech designed to provoke the commission of a crime.</li><li>Defamation and Libel: False statements designed to injure a person's reputation.</li></ul><p></p><p>As you might imagine, there is a great deal of latitude here, making the judgement of whether speech rightly falls under any of these categories challenging, and quite difficult to prove in a court of law. That's why lawyers get paid the big bucks.<br /></p><p>Years ago, working in a photography department in an art museum, our chief curator was sought out by lawyers representing a couple who was under suspicion of producing child pornography. They had taken nude photographs of their young children and were turned in to the DCFS by the lab that processed their film. The curator was asked if the photos had any "artistic merit" or if he thought they were exploitive and pornographic. He referenced works in our collection of a similar nature by established artists such as Sally Mann, but in the end, took the route of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart who had this to say about pornography: "I know it when I see it." Then as Justice Stewart did when writing for the majority in a 1964 obscenity case, our curator added (in not so many words): "and this ain't it." </p><p>Unfortunately, many of the limits to free speech can best be judged by the standard, "I know it when I see it", meaning there are few objective criteria to determine if certain forms of expression fall into the realm of non-protected speech. </p><p>Not surprising then, there is a rigorous burden of proof required to convict someone of crossing the line into unprotected speech meaning that courts when in doubt, generally err on the side of the literal interpretation of the First Amendment.</p><p>Take the most conspicuous example of all the actions that got the exPOTUS into hot water with the latest federal indictment which happened before our very eyes, the attack on our Capitol Building on January 6, 2021. That morning from the Ellipse, just south of the White House, the soon-to-be ex-president gave a speech instructing his supporters numbering in the thousands, to march up Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol to protest the certification of the new president, scheduled for later that afternoon. </p><p>In the speech he said this:</p><p></p><blockquote><i>All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by
emboldened radical-left Democrats, which is what they're doing. And
stolen by the fake news media. That's what they've done and what they're
doing. We will never give up, we will never concede. It doesn't happen.
You don't concede when there's theft involved.</i></blockquote> One of the pieces of evidence of a "stolen election" he cited is that in the presidential election held in 2016, he received 66 million votes while in 2020 he received 75 million, more votes than any candidate for president had ever received before. <div><br /></div><div>Unfortunately for him, his opponent in 2020 received 80+ million votes in the general election, and where it really counted, his opponent won the Electoral College by the same amount of votes the out-going president won against Hillary Clinton in 2016. If you remember, the exPOTUS declared that victory "a landslide", even though he lost the popular vote by three million votes. <p></p><p>But the exPOTUS begged to differ, He added:</p><p></p><blockquote><p><i>And by the way, does anybody believe that Joe had 80 million votes?
Does anybody believe that? He had 80 million computer votes. It's a
disgrace... Take third-world countries.
Their elections are more honest than what we've been going through in
this country. It's a disgrace. It's a disgrace...</i></p> <p><i>We will not let them silence your voices. We're not going to let it happen, I'm not going to let it happen.</i></p></blockquote><p></p><p>He then went on to thank Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, otherwise known as co-Conspirator One and co-Conspirator Two in his second federal indictment, for their stalwart efforts attempting to keep his presidency alive past its expiration date. It was Eastman who came up with the idea that Vice President Pence could reject the tally of electoral votes up on Capitol Hill that day (he really couldn't) and send the results back to the states where they would hopefully return a more favorable result for the president. He went on:</p><p></p><blockquote><p><i>And he (</i>Eastman<i>) looked at Mike Pence, and I hope Mike is going to do the right thing. I hope so. I hope so.</i></p> <p><i>Because
if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election.... He has the absolute right to
do it. We're supposed to protect our country, support our country,
support our Constitution, and protect our constitution...</i></p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><i>And Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us, and if he
doesn't, that will be a, a sad day for our country because you're sworn
to uphold our Constitution.</i></blockquote> After rambling on for about an hour about how unfair losing the election was, he closed by saying this:<p></p><p></p><blockquote><i>And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.</i></blockquote><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>As we all know, Mike Pence didn't do "the right thing" by the exPOTUS that day, and the mob at the Capitol quickly got wind of it. Soon, shouts of "hang Mike Pence" were heard by throngs of Trump supporters, some of whom had the foresight to bring makeshift gallows, should the need for one arise. The mob would eventually breach security and break into and attack the most potent symbol of our democracy. To make matters worse, the soon-to-be ex-president did nothing to stop the attack. Instead, he threw gasoline on the fire by tweeting the following, AFTER he learned that the mob was calling for Mike Pence's head:</p><p><span class="ILfuVd" lang="en"><span class="hgKElc"></span></span></p><blockquote><i>Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done.</i></blockquote> Fortunately, the Vice President, the Speaker of the House, and the members of Congress who were in the crosshairs of the mob, all escaped the ordeal unharmed, largely thanks to the quick thinking and heroism of the Capitol Police. <br /><p></p><p>Unfortunately, five lives were lost that day including members of the Capitol Police. About 150 officers including metropolitan police and those from other agencies were injured. At least four officers took their lives in the months following the attack. </p><p>Whether you call it an insurrection, an act of domestic terrorism, a riot, or merely a spirited protest that got out of hand, it's impossible to make the case that serious crimes were not committed that day by supporters of the president. And one would have to be delusional not to place at least some of the responsibility for the violence and loss of life on the words and actions of one Donald J. Trump on January 6, 2021, and the weeks leading up to it.</p><p>So, it would seem reasonable by the definition of the term mentioned above, that the exPOTUS should be charged with incitement, as without his election lies, his calls to interfere with the process of confirming his successor, and especially his very public pressure on and ultimate denouncement of the Vice President, none of this would have happened. That fact was confirmed by many of the rioters who were convicted of and are now doing time for their crimes that day, who insisted they were there to do the ex-president's bidding.</p><p>And if you believe as I do that the attack on the Capitol was indeed an insurrection (defined as violence against lawful civil authority with the intent to cause its overthrow) AND believe that Trump incited it, then he could be charged with an even more serious crime, sedition, which is defined as "the crime of creating a revolt, disturbance, or violence against lawful civil authority with the intent to cause its overthrow." </p><p>In other words, inciting an insurrection.<br /></p><p>To my eyes, I know an insurrection when I see one, and that's exactly what this was.</p><p>And I know incitement when I see it and sure enough, this has all the hallmarks of it.</p><p>The problem is, you may not see it that way. You might reasonably point out that in his speech, the president did not tell the crowd to break into the Capitol. You might also reasonably point out that at one point in his speech he told his supporters to demonstrate peacefully, or that he was not present at the Capitol at the time of the attack, (even though it appears that he intended to be). More importantly, any one of the twelve jurors picked to decide his fate may legitimately see it that way too, which would result in a hung jury if they cannot be persuaded otherwise by the other 11jurors. </p><p>In the weeks since Special Prosecutor <b>Jack Smith</b> released his latest indictment, the exPOTUS and his supporters have gone all out to use the First Amendment as their primary defense, saying he is being accused of very serious crimes when all he was doing was exercising his freedom of speech. </p><p>Do they have a point?</p><p>No they don't, because the exPOTUS is not being charged either with sedition or inciting the attack on the Capitol.</p><p>Federal prosecutors don't enjoy having <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/06/11/only-2-of-federal-criminal-defendants-go-to-trial-and-most-who-do-are-found-guilty/" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">a high conviction rate</span></b></a> because they choose to prosecute cases that stand a good chance of losing.</p><p>Even though he could have charged the exPOTUS with incitement of the mob that attacked the Capitol, Jack Smith, one of the best in the business, steps ahead of the ex-president and his defenders, took a pass on that one.</p><p>Instead, in the introduction to his indictment, Smith points out that the president like every American is guaranteed by the First Amendment, freedom of speech, including speaking in public about the election, and even to make false claims about it. The document goes on to point out the numerous recourses available to candidates to contest a disputed election including recounts, audits and legal challenges, all of which the exPOTUS took full advantage of. Once all legal means proved unsuccessful, the indictment alleges the exPOTUS and his co-conspirators, attempted other measures to challenge the election, outside of the law.</p><p>In the 45-page August 1st indictment which you can find <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/08/politics/annotated-text-copy-trump-indictment-dg/" target="_blank">here</a></span></b>, the ex-president was charged with four counts of conspiracy to overturn the legitimate results of an American election, and the obstruction official government proceedings, all<b> </b>in violation of statutes listed in the main criminal code of the federal government of United States, Title 18.</p><p>The four counts and the statutes they violate are as follows:</p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Conspiracy to Defraud the United States (18 U.S.Code §371)</li><li>Conspiracy to Obstruct an Official Proceeding. (18 U.S.Code §1512(k))</li><li>Obstruction of and Attempt to Obstruct an Official Proceeding. (18 U.S.Code §§1512(c)(2),2)</li><li>Conspiracy Against Rights (18 U.S.Code §241)</li></ol><p></p><p>In the legal sense, conspiracy is defined as two or more people planning a crime, then taking steps to implement that plan. The crime itself does not have to be committed.</p><p>Count one is referring to the electoral process as established by the Constitution. The defendant and his co-conspirators are accused of conspiring to overturn that function through "dishonesty, fraud and deceit" by falsely insisting the election was "stolen".</p><p>Remember, merely talking about committing a crime does not make a conspiracy.</p><p>The means by which they carried out their fraudulent enterprise to subvert the electoral process include:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Pressuring government officials in states where the defendant lost by a relatively small amount, to replace the electors who would cast their votes for the legitimate winner of that state, Joe Biden, to electors who would cast their votes for the defendant. </li><li>Pressuring state government officials through the supposed authority of the Justice Department (who was not in on the plan), to conduct sham investigations into their elections. </li><li>Attempting to enlist the aid of the Vice President to "fraudulently alter the election results."</li></ul><p></p><p>Counts Two and Three refer to the obstruction of the January 6, 2021 joint session of Congress to confirm the election of the next president, both the conspiracy and the actual act. </p><p>The indictment concludes with Count Four. Here are the allegations in their entirety:</p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: center;"><i>From on or about November 14, 2020 through on or about January 7, 2021, in the District of Columbia and elsewhere the Defendant,</i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i><b>DONALD J. TRUMP</b></i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>did knowingly combine, conspire, confederate, and agree with co-conspirators known and unknown to the Grand Jury, to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate one or more persons in the free exercise and enjoyment of a right and privilege secured to them by the Constitution and laws of the United States -that is, the right to vote, and to have one's vote counted.</i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>(In violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 241).</i></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: center;"></p><p>Despite being a well put-together indictment, it is still far from an iron-clad, slam-dunk case against the exPOTUS. </p><p>As we've all read and heard ad nauseam over the last few months, the exPOTUS is the only president ever to have been indicted. Clearly, we are in uncharted waters here. Add to that the former president is currently a candidate for president who if nominated by his party, will be running against the current president whose Justice Department will be prosecuting him.</p><p><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="http://jamesiska.blogspot.com/2023/06/not-enough-cliches-for-this.html" target="_blank">I pointed out in this post</a></span></b> why I believe the accusations of the current president "weaponizing" his Justice Department against a political opponent are meritless. But the prosecution will have to convince that to all twelve jurors at the trial.</p><p>Fraud may be a difficult issue to prove. If deep-down in the recesses of his mind the defendant truly believed that the outcome of the election was "rigged" against him, could he really have been committing fraud which is defined as "wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain<span face="Roboto, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-size: 14px;">"?</span><br /><br /> In other words, if he truly believed the election was stolen from him, he wasn't practicing criminal deception, as state of mind is a key factor in determining guilt or innocence. </p><p>Nevertheless, rigged or not, he still participated in illegal means to overturn an election, that much is certain. In the indictment there is a plethora of evidence to support the idea that the exPOTUS knew he lost the election fair and square, but on this too the prosecution will have to convince all twelve jurors. </p><p>Then there is the idea of "Conspiracy Against Rights." </p><p>Here is the opening of Section 241 of title 18 of the United States Code which according to the prosecution, justifies the charge of Conspiracy Against Rights:</p><blockquote><i>If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of<b> any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States,</b> or because of his having so exercised the same... they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.</i></blockquote><p>This statute was written after the Civil War and its chief purpose was to prevent the intimidation of black people attempting to vote. It was used extensively during the modern Civil Rights movement of the twentieth century for the same purpose. </p><p>Once again it will be up to the prosecution to prove to all twelve members of the jury, that the statute applies to this particular case.</p><p>Regardless of one's feelings about the exPOTUS, our system of justice demands that he is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Like everyone, he is entitled to his day in court and to a competent defense. </p><p>Also like everyone, if found guilty, he should be held accountable for his actions, regardless of his past job and his aspirations for future employment. </p><p>In this particular case, there is very little in doubt about his actions and those of his co-conspirators. What is in doubt and what the outcome of a potential trial will determine, is the legality of those actions. </p><p>I'm obviously not a lawyer so my opinions on legal matters are of little worth. But as the facts of this case are not much in question, I can say with a great deal of certainly that those actions, illegal or not, were wrong. Very wrong. They run counter to the very idea and spirit of a Democratic-Republic, the system of government we have kept alive in this nation for nearly a quarter of a millennium, the system of government every president is responsible for upholding.</p><p>I used to think the term "existential threat to democracy" when applied to this exPOTUS was hyperbolic, but I no longer do.</p><p>It's interesting to hear people who clearly support his bid for another term as president tear apart the indictment, which I suspect many of them have not read, saying that what the exPOTUS did may have been wrong, but the prosecution cannot prove that the actions were illegal. </p><p>That perplexes me because if they admit what he did was wrong, why would they still support him?</p><p>For instance:</p><p>OK it was wrong for him to watch on TV as his supporters broke into the Capitol, cheering them on as they used flag poles as weapons against the Capitol Police and others, causing grievous injury to many, threatening the lives of his Vice President and other elected officials, and doing absolutely NOTHING to stop it. </p><p>But it may not have been illegal so...</p><p>It was wrong to place the burden on his Vice President to do something completely out of his authority, then set him up as the fall guy, placing him in great peril simply for doing the job the Constitution required of him.</p><p>But it may not have been illegal so...</p><p>It was wrong to single out<b> by name</b>, dedicated, private citizen poll workers doing their job in Georgia, seriously compromising their safety and wellbeing by falsely claiming they were changing votes for him into votes for his opponent. </p><p>But it may not have been illegal so...</p><p>It was wrong that co-Conspirator Four in the August 1 indictment, a mid-level Justice Department official and the president's pick to become acting AG in the waning days of his presidency, suggested invoking the Insurgency Act to have the military put down protestors when informed by others in the president's inner circle that there would be an uprising if the president overturned the election.</p><p>But it may not have been illegal so...</p><p>It was wrong to threaten state government officials with legal action if they didn't overturn the results of a legitimate election or "find" just enough votes in their state to put him over the top. </p><p>But it may not have been illegal so...</p><p>It was wrong for him to not accept the results of an election proscribed by the Constitution after exhausting all his legal recourses to make sure it was fair, then throw this country into turmoil, threatening a constitutional crisis simply to remain in office, mocking our century's old tradition of a peaceful transfer of power.</p><p>But it may not have been illegal so...</p><p>And on and on and on.</p><p>Then there's this:</p><p>The indictment shows the ex-president received the advice of dozens of legal experts on his team including his own Attorney General, all telling him there was no evidence of election fraud significant enough to have changed the results of the 2020 election. It also mentions over sixty failed lawsuits, several audits and recounts, all refuting his claims of a stolen election. If after all that the exPOTUS continued to believe as his supporters claim he did, that he should have won the election, then he is a delusional fool with a pathologically flawed sense of judgement, as opposed to a mere fraud. </p><p>Take your pick. Could the bar possibly be set any lower than that?</p><p>Maybe it's just me but I wouldn't want either a fool or a fraud as president. </p><p>What Jack Smith's reboot of Schoolhouse Rock teaches us is that comprehensive as our laws may be, the framers of our Constitution and the legislators who have written our subsequent laws, didn't think of everything. For example, much to nearly everyone's surprise, there is no statute preventing a convicted felon from running for and serving as president, even from behind bars, something we may be confronting in a short time. </p><p>In order to ensure that wrongdoers face justice, sometimes lawyers representing the State and the Federal Government need to be creative, as the Special Prosecutor, as well as the District Attorney of the State of Georgia <b>Fani Willis</b>* have been with their indictments.</p><p>That may or may not work in their favor as far as getting convictions but one thing is for certain. The most valuable lesson in this whole mess is this:</p><p>Just because something is not illegal does not mean it is not wrong.</p><p>Our country is at a crossroads and we need to think quite seriously about what kind of nation we want to be. Do we want a nation led by public servants who are democratically elected, controlled by the rule of law and a system of checks and balances, the most salient of which are term limits and a quadrennial re-election process? </p><p>Or do we want to be led by an authoritarian ruler-for-life who does as he pleases and answers to no one or nothing other than his own whims? </p><p>That seems like a simple choice. Unfortunately, I'm afraid the "Founding Fathers" overestimated us. It apparently never occurred to them in their wildest dreams that a significant number of Americans would go for choice number two.</p><p> </p><p>*CODA This article was begun before the State of Georgia released their own indictment of the exPOTUS on August 14, which is why I focused on the August 1 Federal indictment rather than on both. Interesting that the two prosecutors, Jack Smith for the Federal government and Fani Willis for the State of Georgia, took much different approaches to their indictments. One could say the former used a scalpel and the latter a chain saw. It will be interesting to see how it all these 91 criminal counts pan out. <br /></p></div>James Iskahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219990004487304003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5271409126833086486.post-25912339074001543082023-08-05T12:25:00.010-05:002023-08-12T08:35:35.725-05:00A Little Context Please<p>A radio interview the other day confirmed my suspicion that the outrage over the <span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/20653/urlt/6-4.pdf" target="_blank"><b>State of Florida's recently published history standards for K-12 public schools</b></a></span>, needs a little more examination.</p><p>The interviewee, William Allen, was one of the contributors to the state's recently published list of standard guidelines regarding the teaching of history, in his case, the section on black American history.</p><p>Most of the outrage generated by this outline of study that otherwise reads like standard issue thought on black history from slavery through the Civil Rights movement, comes from one line.</p><p>The line in question is classified as a "benchmark clarification" and it is part of this item of study, (for reference, number SS.68.AA.2):</p><p></p><blockquote><i>Analyze events that involved or affected Africans from the founding of the nation through Reconstruction.</i></blockquote><p></p><p> One of the sub-categories of the item is the following:</p><blockquote><i>Examine the various duties and trades performed by slaves (e.g., agricultural<br />work, painting, carpentry, tailoring, domestic service, blacksmithing,<br />transportation).</i></blockquote><p>Which is followed by this benchmark clarification, the subject of all the controversy:</p><blockquote><i>Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could </i><b><i>be</i><br /><i>applied for their personal benefit.</i> </b>(emphasis mine)</blockquote><p>Now that you hear it in its proper context, doesn't it sound a little better?</p><p>I didn't think so either.</p><p>Dr. Allen insists that what he and his fellow contributors to the new curriculum were trying to convey is NOT that black Americans have the institution of chattel slavery to thank for the skills their ancestors learned, but rather pointing out that after emancipation, former enslaved people, despite the tremendous odds against them, took their destiny into their own hands. Some of the skills they learned while under bondage, helped them survive their ordeal of life in the Post-Reconstruction South. In his words:</p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro",Georgia,"Droid Serif",serif; font-size: 16px;"></span></p><blockquote><i>It
is the case that Africans proved resourceful, resilient, and adaptive,
and were able to develop skills and aptitudes which served to their
benefit, both while enslaved and after enslaved... It was never said that slavery was beneficial to Africans. <br /></i></blockquote> <p>Dr. Allen said he and his co-authors chose to emphasize the story of black people in the United States as being an example of the triumph of the human spirit, rather than merely a story of oppressors and victims. He then went on to use Frederick Douglass and Ida B. Wells as prime examples of his argument.</p><p>I'll take Dr. Allen's word on his and his colleagues' intentions. Nevertheless, that doesn't change the fact that as written, the clarification itself is tone deaf. </p><p>The line which has come to define the entirety of Florida's new set of standards for the majority of Americans, has been condemned by both the left and the right. Upon release of the document, Vice President Harris before flying down to Florida to lambast the new standards in person, said:</p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>Just yesterday in the state of Florida, they decided middle school students will be taught that enslaved people benefited from slavery...</i> </blockquote><blockquote><i>They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us, and we will not stand for it.</i></blockquote>Also focusing on that one line, Republican senator and presidential candidate Tim Scott from South Carolina who like Dr. Allen is a black conservative, said this:<br /><blockquote><i>There is no silver lining ... What slavery was really about [was] separating families, about mutilating humans and even raping their wives,.. So, I would hope that every person in our country — and certainly [those] running for president — would appreciate that.</i></blockquote><p>It seems the one politician who stands by the wording of the sentence, is the guy who deemed that re-evaluating history standards was necessary in the first place, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. True to form, when first confronted by the questionable statement. DeSantis became defensive. Like a child caught red-handed with a note making fun of the teacher, the first words out of his mouth were " I didn't write that."</p><p>Then he attacked the VP, the "woke mob", and even fellow Republicans who objected to the line, for spreading lies about the standards.</p><p>It's all very silly because there was a simple fix DeSantis could have employed that would have avoided the mess in the first place. He could have responded that in no way is anyone hinting at a silver lining to slavery, that the confusion stems from a poor choice of words, that these standards are still a work in progress, and that the misleading line will be struck and re-written.</p><p>DeSantis could also have brought up truthfully that his state is one of only twelve states in the nation that has mandated the teaching of black history in its public schools. He could also have correctly pointed out that he is personally responsible for signing a bill that required the teaching of <a href="https://www.ucf.edu/pegasus/the-truth-laid-bare/"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">The Ocoee Election Day Massacre</span></b></a> in Florida schools (see below).</p><p>But he didn't bring any of that up.</p><p>The idea that former enslaved people used some of the skills they learned while under bondage in order to survive life as free people under an extraordinarily difficult situation, is not controversial nor debatable. It is in fact so obvious that it hardly needs mentioning. Despite that, it is a part of existing standard curricula around the country, including the one preceding this one in Florida. The objectionable part boils down to the use of two words, "personal benefit." The choice of those words in this context implies (although does not necessarily mean) that lives of people were improved from having been enslaved. It also implies the laughable idea that before they were enslaved, the African people who were brought to this country in chains had no discernible skills of their own.<br /></p><p>As we live in an age of sound bites, the message that black people in this country personally benefited from being enslaved is now the takeaway from these new Florida standards in the minds of most Americans. The obvious conclusion is that the whole point of this exercise is to lessen the immorality and injustice of slavery, to make white enslavers look not so bad, and their descendants several generations removed, to feel not so guilty. With the words "personal benefit" in place, any explanation attempting to prove otherwise falls upon deaf ears.</p><p>Unfortunately, his insistence on being a culture warrior makes DeSantis go to great lengths to avoid being perceived as having said or done anything "woke". One of those lengths is being on the wrong side of history. This is not the first time. In this case, by not insisting the new standards be re-worded to avoid sounding as if they had been written by the Klan, he handed an easy bone of contention, gift wrapped to his opponents. </p><p>Democrats and Independents alike, as well the Republicans who are running against him in his party's nomination for the 2024 presidential race, all will personally benefit from DeSantis's boneheaded intransigence.</p><p>Oh well, that's his problem not mine. </p><p>But I do have a bone to pick with the Left of MAGA crowd, my own tribe, who keep dwelling on the personal benefit theme.</p><p>It isn't because the idea is not horrible and disgusting on its own, but because there are other issues with this new set of standards.<br /></p><p>Let's begin with the Ocoee Massacre mentioned above, and the other atrocities mentioned below, found in Section SS.912.AA.3.6 of the standards:<br /></p><blockquote><p><i>Describe the emergence, growth, destruction and rebuilding of black communities during Reconstruction and beyond.</i> </p></blockquote><blockquote><p><i>Benchmark Clarifications:<br />...<br />Clarification 2: Instruction includes acts of violence perpetrated against <b>and by </b>African Americans but is not limited to 1906 Atlanta Race Riot, 1919 Washington, D.C. Race Riot, 1920 Ocoee Massacre, 1921, Tulsa Massacre and the 1923 Rosewood Massacre.</i></p></blockquote><p>Again the emphasis is mine. Once more, the questionable nature of this clarification comes down to two words, in this case, "and by". The examples given in Clarification 2, all involve the massacre of dozens of black people. In each case there was indeed violence perpetrated by black people but by any reasonable standard, that violence was either in self-defense, or defending the justice of others (i.e.: preventing people from being lynched). As written, the authors are conflating the racist vigilante mob violence of one group with the other group reacting to it in self-defense, implying that both sides are equally responsible for the atrocities. I invite you to look up these tragic events to arrive at your own conclusions. </p><p>My main objection to the new standards however is the motivation to create them in the first place.</p><p>This is what DeSantis had to say in a press release announcing his signing of what has become known as the 2022 "Anti-Woke Act."</p><p></p><blockquote><i>No one should be instructed to feel as if they are not equal or shamed because of their race. In Florida, we will not let the far-left woke agenda take over our
schools and workplaces. There is no place for indoctrination or
discrimination in Florida.</i></blockquote><p>I might be a little dense here but doesn't singling out "the far-left woke agenda" imply some indoctrination on the part of the Governor? <br /></p> <p></p><p>Enter <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-slavery.html" target="_blank"><i>The 1619 Project</i></a></span></b>.</p><p>The brainchild of <b>Nikole Hannah</b>-<b>Jones</b>, a journalist for the New York Times, <i>The 1619</i> <i>Project </i>is a substantive look at American history, bringing the institution of slavery to the forefront of issues that shaped this country. The initial publication of the work was in the August 19, 2019 issue of the <i>New York Times Sunday Magazine</i>, marking the 400th anniversary of the voyage of the White Lion, a ship carrying what many regard to be the first group of African people to these shores to be sold as slaves. So intertwined is slavery to American history according to Hannah-Jones, she uses that date to mark what she considers to be the true origin date of this nation. </p><p>Since its original publication, <i>The 1619 Project</i> has been distributed as a podcast, a book, <i>The 1619 Project</i>: <i>A New Origin Story</i>, a film, and a curriculum distributed to schools around the country.</p><p>The work has received numerous accolades and awards including the Pulitzer Prize for commentary.</p><p><i>1619 </i>has also been roundly criticized for its historical inaccuracies. Shortly after its first publication in the magazine, <i>The Times</i> received a letter written by Princeton historian Sean Wilentz and co-signed by four other eminent historians, James McPherson, the author of the influential Civil War history <i>The Battle Cry of Freedom, </i>Gordon Wood, Pullizer Prize winner for his book: <i>The Radicalization of the Revolution, </i>Victoria Bynum, author of <i>The Long Shadow of the Civil War: Southern Dissent and its Legacies</i>, and James Oakes, author of <i>Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865. <br /></i><br />The letter accuses the author of among other things: a "displacement of historical understanding by ideology." The signees contend that <i>1619 </i>gives the impression that slavery was a uniquely American phenomenon, that it is intrinsically tied to Capitalism, and that the project is unfairly dismissive of Abraham Lincoln and his role in emancipation. But chiefly the authors object to this line from Hannah-Jones's introductory text: </p><blockquote><i>Conveniently left out of our founding mythology, is the fact that one of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery.</i></blockquote><p>It should be noted that several other notable historians were approached to sign the letter but refused on the grounds that they felt the importance of reframing "our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative" in words taken from a promo for the book, outweighs the inaccuracies. </p><p>One of those historians is Leslie M. Harris, professor of history at Northwestern University, and author of<i> In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863</i>. In an article for <i>Politico</i>, Professor Harris writes about her work with the <i>New York Times</i>, verifying some of the details of <i>1619 </i>before it went to press. Professor Harris in her words, "vigorously disputed the claim" that the preservation of slavery was central to American Independence, but to no avail, they went with it anyway.</p><p>Dr. Harris's Politico piece titled <i>I Helped Fact-Check The 1619 Project. The Times Ignored Me,</i> is well worth reading. <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/06/1619-project-new-york-times-mistake-122248" target="_blank">You can find it here.</a></span></b></p><p>Also worth reading is <i>New York Times Sunday Magazine</i> editor Jake Silverstein's response to Professor Wilentz's letter <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">here</span></b>. Silverstein makes an eloquent, if not all together convincing argument for refusing the letter's request to correct the factual errors in <i>1619 </i>save for one. They grudgingly agreed to change the part in the introductory text that reads: "one of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was..." to "one of the reasons <b>some </b>of the colonists..."</p><p>As for the rest of the inaccuracies well, they're still there.</p><p>That's a shame because in my opinion, the lack of attention to getting things right in any historical work, runs the risk of invalidating the entire work. </p><p>In his piece, Silverstein quotes our friend Ron DeSantis:</p><blockquote><i>...the folks who created [The 1619 Project] said that the American Revolution was fought primarily to preserve slavery. Now, that is factually false. That is something that you can look at the historical record. You want to know why they revolted against Britain? They told us. They wrote pamphlets, they did committees of correspondence, they did a Declaration of Independence. ... I think it’s really important that when we’re doing history, when we’re doing things like civics, that it is grounded in actual fact, and I think we’ve got to have an education system that is preferring fact over narratives.<br /></i><p></p></blockquote><p>Silverstein then goes on to refute the Governor:</p><blockquote><i><b>A curious feature</b> (</i>editor's emphasis<i>) of this argument on behalf of the historical record is how ahistorical it is. In privileging “actual fact” over “narrative,” the governor, and many others, seem to proceed from the premise that history is a fixed thing; that somehow, long ago, the nation’s historians identified the relevant set of facts about our past, and it is the job of subsequent generations to simply protect and disseminate them.</i></blockquote>I couldn't agree more that history is not a fixed thing, or that once history is written, it should forever be a closed book. <div><br /></div><div>The following may be a little hard to decipher but I think the exPOTUS and I differ on this issue:</div><div><p style="color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px;"></p></div><blockquote><i>I just look at—I look at school. I watch, I read, look at the stuff. Now they want to change—1492, Columbus discovered America. You know, we grew up, you grew up, we all did, that's what we learned. Now they want to make it the 1619 project. Where did that come from? What does it represent? I don't even know.</i></blockquote><div>But facts are facts and Nikole Hannah-Jones is no more entitled to her own facts than Donald Trump. As much as I hate to say this, DeSantis is right here, at least to some extent. The "Founding Fathers" themselves (not the historians), left us all sorts of evidence of reasons why they demanded independence, including the Declaration of Independence itself. <div><br /></div><div>Well you say: "of course they're not going to openly demand the right to enslave people as even in the late eighteenth century that was a contentious issue." And it is a fact that many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, including its author, were enslavers who certainly had a personal stake in the matter. But it's also true that many of the signers were opposed to slavery and would not have put their personal stamp on such a document if maintaining slavery was indeed one of the main arguments for independence. </div><div><br /></div><div>But the proof in the pudding that Hannah-Jones's position on the matter is a non-starter is that there is scant evidence that Britain in the 1770s had any inclination of eliminating slavery in the American colonies. The fact is the British themselves personally benefitted quite nicely from slavery in the American colonies even after their independence, as is pointed out in one of the episodes of <i>The 1619 Project</i>. Therefore, while the idea of protecting slavery might have been on the minds of some of these men, the premise that preservation of that dreadful institution was one of the main causes for independence is a wild stretch at best.</div><div><br /></div><div>But is it a deal killer as far as <i>The 1619 Project </i>goes?</div><div><br /></div><div>Well, it is for the folks who let it define the entire work, just as the part about people benefiting from the skills they learned as slaves is a deal killer to the people who let it define the new Florida outline.<br /><p>It certainly is a deal killer to DeSantis who has banned the <i>1619 </i>curriculum from being taught in Florida public schools. The new Florida curriculum outline in fact owes its very existence to <i>The1619 Project</i> and the strong backlash to it. Florida is not alone as several other states have done the same.</p><p>It may be likely that even without the historical inaccuracies those states would have still banned the 1619 curriculum for its central theme of race and racism. The inaccuracies just give them legitimate justification. That is unfortunate. It is also unnecessary. Even though Hannah-Jones's idea of slavery being central to the American Revolution fits perfectly into her thesis, her thesis doesn't suffer one bit from dropping the idea which more than likely is not true.</p><p>It doesn't change the fact pointed out by Jake Silverstein that "Enslavement is not marginal to the history of the United States; it is inextricable." </p><p>It doesn't change the idea that rings so true, the title of Nikole Hannah-Jones introductory essay: "Our democracy's founding ideals were false when they were written. Black Americans have fought to make them true." </p><p>If you don't believe that, <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="http://jamesiska.blogspot.com/2023/07/when-rights-collide.html" target="_blank">read my previous post</a></span></b>.<br /></p><p>And it doesn't change what I consider the most valuable aspect of <i>The1619 Project</i>, giving a voice to the people who were up until now voiceless, enslaved people themselves. </p><p>Despite its faults, <i>The1619 Project</i> is a valuable addition to the canon of works dealing with American history. Just like any historical text, it should never be considered the final word on its subject. Perhaps the silver lining to its drawbacks is that as a study tool, students can learn to judge for themselves, discerning fact from narrative and ideology, thereby developing their own critical thinking skills.</p><p>Now that's something from which we can all personally benefit.</p><p><br /></p></div></div>James Iskahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219990004487304003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5271409126833086486.post-37628208406121428842023-07-21T06:57:00.016-05:002023-09-10T08:54:04.962-05:00When Rights CollideThe recent spate of controversial decisions made by the U.S. Supreme Court has gotten me thinking about rights and the role of law in our life. <div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibaepVMaYBtlA1O_hSPFEe6VMMF_kvjOlJ8MlVr6ZLlIUCPcSBbAOMGXEwUhknK48cdMNbb0zJPEzTPAsPfABya_VFipcgMbdBhBmoz9dB_ktP_TIXuUkITbBCmwxBYdcEsw8Epzw65-9cTc9Jxvzpw5LRxMwdWvcVAIBXsxSnpfQ_KCiVQhypUCAz5rM/s1200/SupremeCourtBuilding_WEB.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="821" data-original-width="1200" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibaepVMaYBtlA1O_hSPFEe6VMMF_kvjOlJ8MlVr6ZLlIUCPcSBbAOMGXEwUhknK48cdMNbb0zJPEzTPAsPfABya_VFipcgMbdBhBmoz9dB_ktP_TIXuUkITbBCmwxBYdcEsw8Epzw65-9cTc9Jxvzpw5LRxMwdWvcVAIBXsxSnpfQ_KCiVQhypUCAz5rM/w400-h274/SupremeCourtBuilding_WEB.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div><div>As I've gotten older, I've become more libertarian in my views. The libertarianism I speak of is not the political movement (spelled with an upper case "L") which concerns itself mainly with laissez-faire capitalism, but rather the more general meaning of the word, stemming from its root, that is to say, liberty. In other words, I believe a society such as ours which claims to be "free", should allow its citizens to be well, free, so long as their freedom doesn't impinge on the rights of others.</div><div><div><br /></div><div>Pay close attention to that last part.</div><div><br /></div><div>I believe people should be free to live their lives as they choose with governmental interference kept to a minimum. </div><div><br /></div><div>I believe people should be free to love and to marry whomever they please, and to identify themselves however they see fit.</div><div><br /></div><div>I believe that people should be free to obtain the health care they and their physician (not their state legislator, or governor) feel is necessary to keep themselves well. </div><div> </div><div>I believe that people should be free to practice whatever religion they chose, or none at all. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I believe that educators, with the input of parents, should be free from the government deciding what they should teach or what books their students should be allowed to read.</div><div><br /></div><div>I believe that people should be free to speak their minds, even if what they have to say is unpopular.</div><div><br /></div><div>That last part, freedom of speech, is so important in our society, that it is guaranteed in the first section of the "Bill of Rights" of our constitution, along with the freedom of religion, freedom of the press, the right to peaceably assemble, and the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. As a side note, for those who believe that nowhere in the Constitution can the phrase: "separation of church and state" be found, they are correct. Instead, before any of those rights mentioned above, the very first clause of the First Amendment of our Constitution unequivocally declares that: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion", which means exactly the same thing. </div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, two of those rights enumerated in the First Amendment, speech and religion, figure prominently in one of the Court's latest controversial rulings. The case is identified as <i>303 Creative LLC vs. Elenis</i> and it could prove to be a landmark decision in the realm of public accommodation in the United States. </div><div><br /></div><div>The case involves a Colorado website designer who is looking to branch into creating sites revolving around weddings. The designer, Lori Smith, wanted to post a disclaimer on her own website saying that due to her Christian faith, she would not be accepting business from gay couples intending to get married. However, she learned that such a notice violated Colorado law stipulating that public businesses could not discriminate against people based upon their gender identity or sexual orientation, among many other things.</div><div><br /></div><div>Smith decided to sue, claiming that the Colorado law violated her First Amendment right to freedom of speech.</div><div><br /></div><div>When the Supreme Court ruled in Smith's favor a couple weeks ago, I have to say that I agreed with the decision to some extent. Let me explain:</div><div><br /></div><div>First of all, the inevitable and reasonable question arises: do I believe it's OK to discriminate against people because of their gender identity or sexual orientation? To that I would answer no, I believe it is wrong. But I would add that it is imprudent to make laws against everything that we believe is wrong. It is wrong to be rude to people, but it is not against the law, nor should it be. It is wrong to lie, but unless a lie is told under oath, it is not against the law. It turns out many things are ethically wrong, but not illegal. </div><div><br /></div><div>Laws are created essentially to solve conflicts in society when people left to their own devises cannot solve them on their own. In a civilized world, (the jury is still out on that one concerning this world I'm afraid), people solve problems and conflicts all the time on their own without having to turn to the law, which I would argue is a good thing most of the time. However sometimes the solution is worse than the problem, which is where laws become necessary.</div><div><br /></div><div>In Ms. Smith's case, it seemed perfectly reasonable to me to explain up front to potential clients that because of her beliefs, she wasn't comfortable promoting gay weddings, but would gladly provide the clients in good faith, a list of designers who would. I would argue this is indeed serving potential clients as finding someone to perform a service is more than half the battle.</div><div><br /></div><div>Besides, if I were getting married, something I've already done twice and have no intention of doing again, the last thing I would want is to have someone working on the event who did not approve of my lifestyle or my marriage. </div><div><br /></div><div>That thought had been running through my head ever since another case went before the Supreme Court a few years ago. The case, <i>Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission</i>, involved a baker who refused to provide a wedding cake to a gay couple. Again, I believed that while I didn't agree with the baker's motivations or actions, I felt this case and others like it could have been resolved without involving the courts, especially in our day and age of the internet, where the couple could go online and fight the case in the court of public opinion, often with more effective results than in a court of law. (Please bear in mind that until recently I wasn't aware of the specifics of this case, see below).</div><div><br /></div><div>However...</div><div><br /></div><div>Let it be known that's what I believed two weeks ago but having given it a considerable amount of thought since then, have changed my mind and have done a complete 180.</div><div><br /></div><div>The post you're reading was originally intended to be a half-baked defense of the Court's decision based upon my half-baked libertarianism. Given my previous ambivalence on the matter, I'm not entirely sure what inspired me to write the following two sentences, but I stand by them today and will until my dying day:</div><div><i></i><blockquote><i>There are two essential ingredients for a democracy to work, the first is that the minority must accept the decisions of the majority. The second, at least as important as the first if not more, is that the majority must accept the rights of the minority. </i></blockquote></div><div>The problem with libertarianism's objection to legislation in all but the most serious of cases, is that it assumes people will do the right thing because it generally works in their own self-interest. You know the drill, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you", "what goes around comes around", "instant karma's gonna get you" and all that. Unfortunately, it doesn't take much living in the real world to realize that it doesn't always work out that way. </div><div><br /></div><div>That's why we need laws to protect the rights of minorities, in fact, those laws are the bedrock of our democracy. </div><div><br /></div><div>Many of the first ten amendments to the Constitution, especially the first one, indirectly address the rights of the minority. Ironically, The Bill of Rights was written at a time when owning people was still legal. On December 15, 1791 when the Bill of Rights was ratified, eighteen percent of the U.S. population was enslaved, including a little over two percent in the Northern States alone. The Bill of Rights, the cornerstone of safeguarding our liberty as American citizens, did nothing to change that.</div><div><br /></div><div>It would take a Civil War seventy years later, to eradicate what has come to be known as "America's original sin" once and for all.</div><div><br /></div><div>One of the most consequential amendments to the constitution, the Fourteenth, was adopted on July 9th, 1868, three years after Lee's surrender at Appomattox to Grant.</div><div><br /></div><div>Here's the meat and potatoes of the Fourteenth Amendment, Section One:</div><blockquote><i>All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.<br /></i></blockquote><p>As clear as legal writing can be, the Fourteenth Amendment declared who will be granted the full rights of citizenship in this country, that no person, citizen or not, shall be punished without due process of the law, and that everyone residing in the United Sates, legally or not, is granted equal protection of the law.</p><div>But there was still a lot of work to do. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, known as the "Reconstruction Amendments", were written during the period around the end of the Civil War. In a nutshell, the thirteenth amendment officially abolished slavery, and the fifteenth prohibited the government from denying the right to vote on the basis of race. (Women would have to wait another 50 years for the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment which granted universal suffrage in the United States.) </div><div><br /></div><div>Anyone with a sense of U.S. history knows that the post-Reconstruction was a particularly dreadful time for black people in this country, especially in the South. It is the time that gave birth to the KKK, Jim Crow segregation laws, public (and private) lynchings, and illegal disenfranchisement. With virtually no one willing or able to enforce them down south, it was as if the reconstruction amendments did not exist. </div></div><div><br /></div><div>Despite the non-violent movements that confronted the treatment of blacks in the U.S., led by estimable figures such as Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells and W.E.B. Du Bois, it would remain that way, virtually unchanged for nearly three quarters of a century. </div><div><br /></div><div>I think it's fair to say that the modern American Civil Rights movement began in earnest at the end of the Second World War in 1945 when black members of the armed forces who served this country with distinction in Europe and the Pacific, returned home to their previous lives as second-class citizens. This grave injustice did not go unnoticed, even outside of the black community.</div><div><br /></div><div>As I've written in this space before, one of the first great, symbolic victories in the modern American Civil Right Movement came on April 15, 1947, when Jackie Robinson entered the previously segregated baseball Major Leagues and played his first game with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Quoting myself:</div><blockquote><i> Jackie Robinson (may have only been) a ballplayer and much of his legacy is wrapped around a game. But back in the day, baseball wasn't different from any other institution in the United States in regards to race, it was simply more public, and the integration of the game brought the issue of racial injustice in this country to the forefront. <br /></i><div></div></blockquote><div>Soon to follow were the harrowing, trailblazing events and the people who inspired them that symbolize the American Civil Rights movement and would change this country forever. I won't go into detail here as I believe the mere mention of the following names and events should be sufficient to anyone with a modicum of understanding of American history:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Emmett Till</li><li>Thurgood Marshall</li><li>Rosa Parks</li><li>Medgar Evers<br /></li><li>The Lunch Counter Sit-Ins</li><li>The Freedom Rides</li><li>The Birmingham Campaign</li><li>The March on Washington</li><li>The Selma to Montgomery March <br /></li><li>Martin Luther King</li></ul></div><div>to name just a few.</div><div><br /></div><div>And yet, people were still unmoved by injustice, so it took laws to make real change. Again, I won't go into much detail here, for more information you can look up these groundbreaking SCOTUS decisions, executive orders, acts of Congress and amendments to the Constitution, all made possible by the Fourteenth Amendment:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li> Executive Order 8802, <span class="ILfuVd" lang="en"><span class="hgKElc">which outlawed discrimination based on race, color, creed, and national origin in the federal government and defense industries.</span></span></li><li>Executive Order 9981 which officially integrated the armed forces.<span class="ILfuVd" lang="en"><span class="hgKElc"> <br /></span></span></li><li>Brown vs. Board of Education which declared state sanctioned segregation of schools unconstitutional.<br /></li><li>Bailey vs. Patterson which prohibited racial segregation of transportation facilities.</li><li>The Twenty-fourth Amendment, which eliminated the poll tax as a requirement for voting. <br /></li><li>Loving vs. Virginia which affirmed the right to inter-racial marriage.</li><li>The Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, 1964 and 1968</li><li>The Voting Rights Act of 1965</li><li>The Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972</li></ul></div><div>Most relevant to the topic of at hand is The Civil Rights Act of 1964 which among other things, prohibited discrimination in public accommodations, facilities, and schools.</div><div><br /></div><div>From that point on, from a legal standpoint at least, black people no longer would be required to sit at the back of the bus, figuratively and literally.</div><div><br /></div><div>But it didn't stop there. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 insured that those guaranties of the right to not be discriminated against would be extended to other groups who had a long history of being marginalized in American society. In addition to race, the categories that were deemed protected classes under the anti-discrimination statutes as spelled out in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were age, national origin, religious beliefs, gender, disability, pregnancy and veteran status.<br /></div><p></p><div></div><p></p><p></p><div>In addition to these categories, states were free to add their own protected classes of individuals, including sexual orientation and gender identity. Colorado did so on May 29, 2008, officially banning discrimination of the LBGTQ+ community in housing, public accommodation and advertising. In 2021 the state expanded these protections to employment. <br /></div><div> </div><div>As of this writing, about 20 states include sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the <i>Masterpiece </i>wedding cake case, the couple who were refused a cake for their wedding, filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission against the baker for what was a clear violation of the state's public accommodation anti-discrimination law. The Commission ruled in favor of the couple and required the baker not only to provide cakes for gay weddings but also to:</div><div><blockquote><i>change its company policies, provide 'comprehensive staff training' regarding public accommodations discrimination, and provide quarterly reports for the next two years regarding steps it has taken to come into compliance and whether it has turned away any prospective customers.</i></blockquote><p>The baker responded by ceasing to bake wedding cakes entirely.* He also sued the CCRC on the grounds that the law violated his first amendment right to freely exercise his religion. That case made it to the Supreme Court. The case which seemingly pitted two fundamental rights against each other, stymied moderate members of the Court such as now retired Justice William Kennedy who while on the bench, was the court's staunchest defender of the First Amendment AND gay rights. </p><p>So the Court punted. </p><p>Their decision in that case was inconsequential, it rested on a technicality, namely that the CCRC erred in its ruling by using disparaging words about religion, which led Kennedy to write in his majority opinion: "religious hostility on the part of the State itself" violated the "State's obligation of religious neutrality." The court ruled 7-2 in favor of the baker, the dissenting votes coming from the Justices Sonia Sotomayor and the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg.</p><p>With Ginsburg and Kennedy gone, both replaced by far more ideologically conservative judges, the table was set for a different outcome with the <i>303</i> case. The plaintiff argued what separated her case from the one preceding it, is that in the role she hoped to play in her new business, she would be writing copy to accompany pictures posted on the wedding websites. As she objected to gay marriage, she claimed she would be forced to write something she didn't believe in, thereby violating her First Amendment right to freedom of speech.</p><p>Six justices made up exclusively by the ideologically conservative branch of the Court agreed with her. The remaining three dissented.</p><p>This ruling is consequential because in it, the Court is saying that it is indeed OK to discriminate in some cases. Defenders of the decision say the ruling is very narrow in that it only concerns cases where a business is required to provide language, a protected right, rather than say, just a cake. But wait a minute, can't a baker claim his or her cake is a work of art, therefore a form of personal expression which could also be considered protected by the First Amendment?. What about a wedding photographer or a musician?</p><p>We don't have to stop there, what about business owners who are morally opposed to mixed marriages? Or folks whose religion teaches them that blacks Jews and Catholics are devil worshipers? Believe me, those people are out there, not just a product of my imagination.<br /></p><p>Which begs the question, what if the plaintiff in the <i>303</i> case had instead sued to refuse service to Catholic couples, how would the six conservative justices, five of whom are practicing Catholics, have voted?</p><p>I can't say for certain, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the outcome of this case would have been different, assuming the Court would have even bothered to hear the case at all.<br /></p><p>Regardless, as a result of this ruling, messages like "Gays not served" and "Blacks, Jews and Catholics not welcome" are now AOK according to this court's ruling, at least in some cases. </p><p>What's next?</p><p>We'll have to see as we can now expect a whole new slew of lawsuits coming before the court, claiming the plaintiff's First Amendment right to discriminate.</p><p>Yes I know, my argument here predicting all sorts of terrible things that might result from this decision, could fall into the category of a slippery slope logical fallacy. But here's the thing, if you want to change something big in the courts, you have to start small. I'm not questioning the motivations of the two plaintiffs in these cases. I have little doubt the baker and the web designer are sincere in looking after their own interests, protecting their faith and respective businesses. Challenging the law is their First Amendment right after all.</p><p>But sustaining a lawsuit all the way through to the Supreme Court takes tremendous resources which few individuals have. Typically, there is an interested third party, usually an organization with deep pockets and an agenda or axe to grind who takes up causes such as this to provide the funding and the legal expertise to make cases like these possible.</p><p>Sure enough, both plaintiffs were represented by a group called the <b>Alliance Defending Freedom</b>, a Christian advocacy group who in their mission statement declares itself to be: </p><blockquote><p><i> the world’s largest legal organization committed to protecting
religious freedom, free speech, marriage and family, parental rights,
and the sanctity of life. </i></p></blockquote><p></p><p>From their website:</p><blockquote><p><i>ADF is working to secure Generational Wins in the five key
areas.</i></p></blockquote><p></p><p>Those five key areas are:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>"Guaranteeing the right to life from conception to natural death."</li><li>"Restoring religious freedom as a fundamental right."</li><li>Securing free speech for all."</li><li>"Guaranteeing the fundamental rights of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children."</li><li>"Ensuring the law respects God’s created order for marriage, the family, and human sexuality." </li></ul><p>From my experience, whenever a Christian organization claims it is working to "protect religious freedom", what they are really working for is the right to impose their religion on others. <br /></p><p>Rest assured that for the ADF, the First Amendment in these two cases is only a means to an end, they have much bigger fish to fry.</p><p><a href="https://adflegal.org/article/what-you-may-not-know-how-adf-helped-overturn-roe-v-wade" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Here from their website</span></b></a> is a detailed description of the group's efforts to help successfully overturn Roe v. Wade. Pay close attention to the small steps they took before the big leap. <br /></p><p>Now that item number one of their "Generational Wins" to-do list is checked off, the two victories regarding denying public accommodations for LGBTQ+ people could be the first steps necessary for them to check off item number five, "respecting God’s created order for marriage".</p><p>In other words, getting the Supreme Court to overrule <b>Obergefell v. Hodges</b>, the landmark 2015 decision, ruling that the right to marry is guaranteed to same sex couples by the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. <br /></p><p>Justice Clarence Thomas, who not surprisingly voted in the minority in <i>Obergefell</i>, has publicly invited like-minded parties to bring cases to the Court that challenge rulings he does not like involving not only the right to gay marriage, but sexual acts between consenting adults (Lawrence v. Texas) and contraception (Griswold v. Connecticut). In his concurring opinion to the case that overturned Roe, Thomas wrote: </p><blockquote><i>In future cases, we should reconsider all of this court’s substantive
due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell</i>.</blockquote><p></p><p>This Court has a track record of taking away rights Americans have enjoyed by for decades by overruling precedent, and it is clear that Thomas intends to keep on doing it.</p><p>It would be interesting to hear Justice Thomas's views on yet another due process precedent, <i>Loving v. Virginia</i>, the overruling of which would invalidate his own marriage. </p><p>There are more fundamental issues with this case than the dreadful consequences that may likely result from this decision. I understand how some people might resent the comparison of someone like Rosa Parks, who was arrested for not sitting in her proper place on a bus, to a couple who were denied a wedding cake. But grave injustices and not quite as grave injustices are both injustices. If we are going to have laws that prohibit businesses from discriminating against particular groups of people, something I believe the majority of Americans support, we can't cherry pick the offenses we feel are "worthy" from others we feel are not. If it is illegal to ban black people from being served at your place of business, it is illegal (in the states where they are a protected group), to ban LBGTQ people. Equal protection under the law means just that. It shouldn't be that hard to figure out.</p><p>In a perfect world, we wouldn't need laws, we'd all be able to figure out how to do the right thing on our own. As we saw above, the laws that protect against discrimination written over the last eighty years or so, have helped set us on the course of being a more free, equitable and just society, something we should all be on board with. We still have a lot of work to do to get to that place and it doesn't help that this Court is hellbent on setting us backward a half century or more. </p><p>Funny, in the process of writing this post, I went from being OK with this decision to believing it is an unmitigated disaster.</p><p>Guess I should turn in my libertarian card. <br /></p><p><br /></p><p>CODA</p><p>*Getting out of the wedding cake business entirely is a very reasonable solution to the problem for the baker who didn't want to bake cakes for gay weddings. Come to think of it, it's a good rebuttal to the argument that someone's First Amendment rights are violated when their work requires them to do or say something they do not agree with. They are free to pursue other work opportunities that do not conflict with their beliefs. </p><p>A good example is a friend of mine who worked for a firm that considered doing business with a company that manufactured assault weapons. As he has a moral objection to these weapons, my friend was prepared to quit his job rather than contribute to something he felt was immoral. Sometimes there are difficult decisions to be made in life, especially if you have strong beliefs. Nowhere in the Constitution does it guarantee the right to a job that will never require you to do something you may not believe in. Personally, I see no First Amendment issue in these two cases at all. </p></div><p></p></div>James Iskahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219990004487304003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5271409126833086486.post-39304637792242264042023-07-04T10:39:00.015-05:002023-07-11T13:29:04.513-05:00Some Thoughts on the Fourth of July<p>I've written before about summer's bookend holidays, <a href="https://jamesiska.blogspot.com/2017/05/decoration-day.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b>Memorial Day</b></span></a> and <span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="http://jamesiska.blogspot.com/2011/09/labor-day.html" target="_blank"><b>Labor Day</b></a></span>. Both are days that call for reflection on what they commemorate. Whether we actually think about those who gave their lives in service to this country, be they veterans or activists in the cause of making this a better place for the working man and woman, is another story.</p><p>We have a new national summer holiday, <b>Juneteenth</b>, which commemorates the emancipation of slaves in the United States, certainly a day worthy of reflection and indeed, celebration. It has been referred to as Black Independence Day and rightfully so. Juneteenth deserves a post all its own which I promise is forthcoming.</p><p>But this post is about the other Independence Day, popularly known as the Fourth of July, or simply, The Fourth.</p><p>I would like to say that every year on fourth day of July, I dutifully read the Declaration of Independence before risking life and limb, not to mention the mental health of animals, by blowing things up. What could be more American than that?</p><p>The truth is I seldom do either of those things, but there are exceptions, see below. I did read in its entirety the Declaration of Independence the other day, whose signing in the year 1776 is what Independence Day commemorates, in case you forgot.</p><p>The Declaration is for the most part, a list of grievances against the colonial powers of the British Crown, but when we think of the document written by Thomas Jefferson, one sentence immediately comes to mind:</p><blockquote><i>We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.</i></blockquote><p>With those words, I think it's safe to say that as our Constitution is the heart of this nation, the Declaration of Independence is its soul. </p><p>That rings true despite the bitter irony that not only did its author own slaves, but also ignored half of the nation in his grand statement. </p><p>Despite the irony, it has been the words themselves serving as an ideal, that have led us more or less, in the right direction for nearly 250 years. We may not be there yet, there have been many roadblocks, there will continue to be obstacles, but I believe we will get to that promised land one day, when inspired by those words, all of us, men, women, black, white and brown, rich, poor, gay, straight, trans and cis, will have equal rights. This won't happen in my lifetime, and probably not in my children's either, but it will one day. </p><p>You see, despite everything, I am an eternal optimist. </p><p>And that's why I'm happy to celebrate the Fourth of July in whatever way I can, usually being content to let others blow stuff up while I watch.</p><p>Growing up, my family did not have any particular Fourth of July tradition, we just winged it, culminating with the obligatory witnessing of a sanctioned fireworks display. In a big city, that inevitably means a tremendous hassle, fighting the multitudes in getting to a place reasonably close to see the display. Been there, done that on several occasions, with mixed results. I distinctly remember in the mid-sixties, being stuck in gridlock on southbound Lake Shore Drive, trying to get to Soldier Field to see their fireworks show. If my memory serves, we never got there. </p><p>Because of that, more often than not, my most satisfying Fourths were spent out of town, usually in small towns in Wisconsin and Michigan.</p><p>The following is a list in no particular order, of some of my most memorable Fourth of Julys:</p><p><b>The most memorable, 1968: </b>Not much to do with the holiday itself but something every Chicagoan of a certain age will understand, I went to a taping of "Bozo's Circus". The hardest ticket in town in those days, on-the-ball parents sent in their requests to WGN TV at the time of the birth of their first child, knowing the tickets would show up in the mail about eight years later, just in time before the kid would be too old for such nonsense. Hopefully there would be younger siblings to follow. No, my parents were not on the ball when I was born, it was my friend Edgars's parents who didn't have enough young kids of their own to use up all their tickets, so they invited me. I think that evening we did make it to Soldier Field for the fireworks, which paled in comparison to meeting Bozo. </p><p><b>The least memorable, that I actually remember, 1976: </b>The Bicentennial of the United States was anticipated for years before the event. Consequently, when the actual day rolled around, it could not possibly live up to the hype. I vaguely recall being with my parents, standing in line for about a couple hours to see something, I can't remember what or where. I want to say it was Navy Pier to see a moon rock on display. But I don't think that makes sense because seven years after the original moon landing, the thrill would have long been gone. When the day came to an end, I do recall the song that went through my head, the refrain of a Peggy Lee tune that was popular at the time: "Is that all there is?"</p><p><b>The sweetest, 2002: </b>That year, our first child was a little over one year old and we threw all caution to the wind by taking him to his first fireworks display on the Kenosha lakefront. We had a wonderful time picnicking with his grandparents and his aunt and his uncle, happily anticipating the big event with the first child in the family for at least three hours. Then it got dark, the booms began, and we discovered our little boy was totally freaked out by the noise. After two or three minutes of hysterical crying, he fell fast asleep, allowing us to enjoy the fireworks in relative peace, paradoxical as that may sound. </p><p><b>The most satisfying</b>, <b>1997 and 1998: </b>Before marriage and children, my wife and I liked to head up to Wisconsin where she grew up. One Fourth of July we stayed in a B&B in the city of East Troy, situated in the beautiful Kettle Moraine region of the state. Another year we headed up the coast of Lake Michigan. On the way we found a deserted beach where for the one and only time, went skinny dipping in the lake. We ended up at Port Washington, a small lakefront city where we sat on the rocks by the shore with a few thousand others, as opposed to several hundred thousand if we had stayed at home, to watch the fireworks. Perhaps my favorite Fourth of July or at the very least, tied for that title with the following. </p><p><b>The red, white and bluest, 1987:</b> We did have a tradition of sorts during the eighties, when my ex-wife and I would often spend the Fourth, as well as other festive holidays, with our friend Scott, who moved to Michigan where he bought a one room schoolhouse near South Haven. One year, Scott took us to the small town of Allegan, MI, situated on the Kalamazoo River. In the shadow of the historic and truly lovely <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Street_Bridge_(Allegan,_Michigan)" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Second Street Bridge</span></b></a>, sits a park with a gazebo, where the town band put on a concert of patriotic tunes (what else?). I have to say that corny as it sounds, there is no better place to spend the Fourth than in a small town, especially a picturesque one like Allegan. Imagine a Norman Rockwell painting of the Fourth of July and you have an idea of what it was like. It hardly mattered that the band evoked memories of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyncNqyKe7I" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Mayberry Marching Band</span></b></a>. If anything, their sincere if slightly less-than-virtuosic performance, made the experience all the more wonderful. </p><p><b>The scariest, 1988: </b>Also with Scott, this time on the beach in South Haven. Waiting for the town's official fireworks show to begin, as is common at these events, there were several unofficial, amateur fireworks shows going on. A couple hundred yards in front of us, a tremendous blast went off, the flash occurring smack dab in the middle of a group of spectators. Then came the emergency vehicles. After about 15 minutes they cleared the scene, and I recall the show went off without a hitch, but the mood of the crowd darkened considerably. The following day in the newspaper we learned what had happened. Someone tossed a lit M-80 (a firecracker on steroids) into the crowd. It landed underneath the back of a man who was lying on the sand while propped up on his elbows. The man was seriously injured both with second and third degrees burns to his back from the blast as well as severe lacerations from the sand kicked up by the explosion. </p><p><b>The most historic</b>,<b> 1986:</b> We happened to be in New York City visiting my friend Frank during the festivities surrounding the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty. As one can see from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Weekend" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b>Wikipedia article</b></span></a> on the event, there were four days' worth of activities celebrating the milestone including speeches by the presidents of the United States, (Ronald Reagan), and France, (François Mitterand), a flotilla including U.S. Navy warships and beautiful tall ships sailing by Lady Liberty, a concert featuring Frank Sinatra, Neil Diamond and other big stars, and the proverbial much, much more. Being big city dwellers weary of the hassle of attending such events, amplified a hundredfold by being in NYC, we avoided all of that. Instead, we chose to limit our participation to viewing the July 4th fireworks in New York Harbor from the roof of Frank's sister's apartment building in Brooklyn, about five miles away. Nevertheless, we can say were there.</p><p><b>The most hands on: c.1975:</b> As I said, I typically prefer to let other people blow stuff up for me on the Fourth, but not that year. My Uncle Bob lived with his family in suburban Oak Lawn and we would spend Christmas and other holidays with them at their home. For some reason, only once did we spend the Fourth of July there, and their tradition was to shoot off fireworks in front of their home, along with everybody else on their block. Despite being somewhat timid at the outset, I even shied away from cap guns as a child, I quickly got into the swing of things and had a blast, pun intended. Nevertheless, I was still respectful of the explosives and would toss the things the instant the fuse was lit. Not so my macho father who insisted on holding on to the explosive device until the very last second before it would explode. One time he waited a little too long and the cherry bomb he was lighting, went off not exactly in his hand, but just inches from it. While everyone gasped in horror, he stoically laughed off the incident with not so much as an ouch, although I'm certain he was hurt. Clearly, I didn't inherit my old man's penchant for risk taking machismo.</p><p><b>The biggest wash out. 1999:</b> Another thing I didn't inherit, was my late friend Janet's patience. She was the kind of person who would obtain a ridiculously hard-to-find parking space on her block by putting the blinkers on and wait for someone to show up to move their car. I on the other hand had no patience for that, preferring to drive around for blocks looking for an available spot, sometimes parking a mile or two away. In the end of course, her way would be far more efficient, both in terms of distance, and time. So, it makes perfect sense that Janet and her partner Dave, also a dear friend who was equally patient, would have no problem staking out a spot to watch the official Chicago fireworks show, ten, perhaps twelve hours before the event. That year we joined them around 3pm on the holiday, picnicking on a berm above the Grant Park parking garage on Monroe Street. I believe Dave set up camp around 10am and was there the entire time. We had a wonderful time until we noticed the sky was becoming darker and darker. If we had smartphones back then with up-to-the-minute weather forecasts, we might have taken cover. Instead, we hoped for the best and boy did we pay the price. Nevertheless, it was one of the last and best times we had with this wonderful couple, so it was all worth it, not a washout at all. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5Z9aMZ9M9biBajrh3Sh3KWvyndJeZ7HgYCo30r7YIthmMaV8OYdcs2xBJbwgV7sQfxopxzuUUt5nyL9AAVr5IqsXVtCXkWXzQDOCdRDEWBmp0wCUYEvCQey6M62gQPu68iIj04nIeXU0zjV53QVWRGSO75ZWZyqZ_GqPyxRpC6P_wia7cg7_cN-sostE/s1742/IMG_1507.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1127" data-original-width="1742" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5Z9aMZ9M9biBajrh3Sh3KWvyndJeZ7HgYCo30r7YIthmMaV8OYdcs2xBJbwgV7sQfxopxzuUUt5nyL9AAVr5IqsXVtCXkWXzQDOCdRDEWBmp0wCUYEvCQey6M62gQPu68iIj04nIeXU0zjV53QVWRGSO75ZWZyqZ_GqPyxRpC6P_wia7cg7_cN-sostE/w400-h259/IMG_1507.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Janet on the right, with my wife and me waiting for the fireworks that would never come.<br />Photo by Dave. </td></tr></tbody></table><p><b>The farthest away, 1996 and 1997:</b> Those two consecutive years I happened to be out of the country for the Fourth of July, 1996 in Barcelona and 1997, in Yamagata, Japan. Both times my hosts wished me a very happy Independence Day, reminding me of something I had completely overlooked. How people in other countries view Americans is what originally inspired this post, but I've gotten side-tracked, and that post will have wait for another day.</p><p><b>The most Zenlike, c. 2018: </b>For the last several years, my son and I have been invited to a party at the home of our friends who are fellow baseball parents. Today we unfortunately won't be able to make it because of other commitments. At these parties, adult beverages are served and as the festivities usually begin in the early afternoon, by the time it gets dark well, you get the picture. Anyway, one year our host Ricky, brought out a Chinese lantern, effectively a miniature hot air balloon, consisting of a paper structure, open at the bottom, suspended over a candle. The lit candle heats up the air inside the paper "balloon" and once the air is hot enough, the whole assemblage, candle and all lifts off, much like a balloon filled with helium. Unlike a helium balloon, the candle illuminates the paper lantern so its voyage to wherever the air current takes it can be viewed for several minutes, much like a rocket blasting off at night. I had never seen one of these before and between the chaos of the fireworks going off in the surrounding neighborhood and the room zooms caused by the alcohol running through my bloodstream, I stood there transfixed, watching this little toy, the most satisfying (and quiet) firework of them all, make its one and only journey to God knows where. It's an image that will remain with me the rest of my life. </p><p><b>Then there was last year, 2022:</b> Fourth of Julys have been less momentous for my wife and me since our parade and firecracker hating kids came along, Last year was set to be no different. But around 10:30 am, I walked into the kitchen and heard a report on the radio of yet another mass shooting in the United States. This report was different as the voices of the reporters on the scene were familiar, they were local reporters. </p><p>It was at an annual Fourth of July Parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park where a young man with a high-powered assault style rifle, perched himself on the roof of a commercial building along the parade route, and began shooting indiscriminately at spectators and participants. In the end, he killed seven people and wounded 48. Not long after hearing the initial report, my thoughts immediately turned to a friend, my friend Frank's godson, who lives in the suburb with his wife their two small children. Certainly, I thought, they had to have been at the parade. Turns out they were, but as I found out hours later, to my relief, they were not on the same block as the shooter. </p><p>Later that day, reports came out about a doctor on the scene as a spectator, who attended to several victims, most likely saving at least a few of their lives. His name is <b>Dr. David Baum</b>, the obstetrician who delivered our first child in 2001. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/illinois-shooting-july-fourth-parade-07-05-22/h_a34ff88b00c4f867e8a343ad85986985" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b>In this article from CNN</b></span></a>, you can read Dr. Baum's graphic descriptions of the injuries he saw that day.</p><p>The next day I saw a Facebook post from a friend and fellow parent at my kids' former elementary school. He reported the devastating news of the death of his father, one of the victims of the shooting. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/05/us/victims-highland-park-shooting.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Here is an article with the stories of the seven people who died that tragic day one year ago. </span></b></a> My friend's father was Steven Strauss.</p><p>For the victims and their loved ones, those present at the scene, the people of Highland Park, and to a slightly lesser extent everyone in the Chicago Metropolitan area, the Fourth of July will never be the same. To many of us, myself included, it will forever be a day of grief, mourning and loss as much as a day of celebration. </p><p>It's a little hard to put into perspective what that all means. All I can say is this: it's hardly surprising that on the most American of holidays, the most American of tragedies would take place. </p><p>I love my country, but I'm troubled. </p><p>I'm reminded of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQJt7Sd6AG8" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">this recent video</span></b> </a>published by my favorite YouTube language teacher, <b>Juan Fernandez</b>. A Spanish ex-pat living in London, in the video Fernandez returns to Spain and lists many of the things he loves and misses about his country. Then after each item on the list he adds, "pero eso no es lo que me gusta mas de España" (but that isn't what I like most about Spain.). After about a dozen times repeating that phrase, he wraps up the video (spoiler alert) with this thought: "Lo mejor de España es la gente." The best thing about Spain is the people. Then the screen goes dark.</p><p>Not long ago, I would have said the same thing about my country.</p><p>I used to think that despite our differences of opinion, at heart, we Americans all shared a devotion to the core values of this nation as spelled out by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, especially the part about self-evident truths and all of us being created equal. </p><p>But now I'm not so sure. It seems too many of us think men and women are created equal, have the unalienable rights Jefferson mentions, and I might add the right to vote, so long as they look, act and think like us.</p><p>I used to think we all shared a passion and respect for democracy, and a profound disgust for totalitarianism in all its forms. </p><p>But it seems that a lot of us show a true admiration for dictators, both real ones abroad, and wannabie ones over here.</p><p>I used to think that we all understood the difference between facts and opinions.</p><p>But scores of us don't recognize that while everyone is entitled to their own opinions, no one is entailed to their own facts. </p><p>And I used to think we all paid heed to the words of Abraham Lincoln who quoting the Bible, said this: </p><p></p><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">A house divided against itself cannot stand. </blockquote><p>But there are bad actors, mostly politicians and their enablers who, rather than seeking compromise and consensus, as is required of a working democracy, use the oldest rick in the book of tyrants. They gain power by purposefully dividing the public against itself by exploiting fear, anger and hatred, then saying things like: "only I can solve our nation's problems" and "they're not coming after me, they're coming after YOU." Worst of all, there are far too many of us who gladly follow these people. </p><div>Just as my feelings about this country are complicated, so too are my feelings about today, the Fourth of July. </div><div><br /></div><div>Perhaps last year's tragedy puts it all into perspective. Today we celebrate the lofty ideals of our nation as we mourn the tragedies and lost opportunities. We celebrate our potential, our liberty, and our diversity spelled out in the nation's motto: <i>e pluribus unum </i>(out of many, one). But we long for what could have been, had we only paid heed to those ideals, had our selfishness, fear and hatred of our fellow human beings not gotten in the way.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ours is a great country to be sure but it could be so much better.</div><div><br /></div><div>With that in mind, have a happy, thoughtful and meaningful Fourth of July.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'll close with my friend Leon's parting words to me every time I see him:</div><div><br /></div><div>Be careful out there.</div><p></p>James Iskahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219990004487304003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5271409126833086486.post-83129693105951125342023-06-25T16:58:00.002-05:002023-06-25T16:58:42.290-05:00Pride<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfZvaVh1lR7BBmMzRGUyUdU8IXscuVVfl0aeXX5RO4WO4FE3mtGrYHVbCIK18T4_IF3h4JeVvNZ1pInDtm8wjbPQjNwq3akb9qSqJVurLE9Vh7zOMxCQowz64MzGQOCW971i6EHNODq3Qu_E4eZrXM0Dsu9_IW5PfRSHo6CQD0rMAFC2RNH0c_ZbN-GHE/s1920/Gay_Pride_Flag.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1186" data-original-width="1920" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfZvaVh1lR7BBmMzRGUyUdU8IXscuVVfl0aeXX5RO4WO4FE3mtGrYHVbCIK18T4_IF3h4JeVvNZ1pInDtm8wjbPQjNwq3akb9qSqJVurLE9Vh7zOMxCQowz64MzGQOCW971i6EHNODq3Qu_E4eZrXM0Dsu9_IW5PfRSHo6CQD0rMAFC2RNH0c_ZbN-GHE/s320/Gay_Pride_Flag.svg.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>For my part, I'm proud to live in a city and a state that recognizes that in a free society, people have the right to be who they are.</p><p>It doesn't get any more basic than that.</p><p>Happy Pride month.</p>James Iskahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219990004487304003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5271409126833086486.post-25843031217279074352023-06-19T16:39:00.006-05:002023-06-21T12:34:56.228-05:00Not Enough Clichés for This<p>Strap yourselves in folks, it's going to be a bumpy ride. </p><p></p><p>That's just another <span aria-level="1" class="yKMVIe" role="heading">cliché</span> making the rounds these days as we head into uncharted waters, so to speak.</p><p>For the purpose of this post, last Tuesday evening I held my nose and sat through a speech the exPOTUS gave at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, a few hours after he was indicted for a second time.</p><p>Predictable in so many ways, that speech featured wall to wall hyperbole, logical fallacies<b style="color: #2b00fe;">, </b>misleading statements, outright lies, a few pronouncements taken directly from the How to be a Dictator for Dummies Handbook, and other stuff that could best be described as nothing more than <span aria-level="1" class="yKMVIe" role="heading">unadulterated bullshit</span>. I'll detail just a few of those in a minute.<br /></p><p>The one thing that separated this speech from his typical whiney rants of the past was that it featured an unusual amount of self-pity, even for him, not a good look for someone who likes to pretend he's a tough guy. In reality a diva if there ever was one, 45 made it clear to his adoring public that the great tragic operatic heroines, Aida, Madama Butterfly and Lucia di Lammermoor combined, have nothing on him as far as suffering and being victims of indignity, maltreatment, and injustice. Paraphrasing the old Negro spiritual, to the MAGA cult who sees their guy as a latter-day Jesus Christ, nobody knows the trouble he's seen. </p><p>To the rest of the world, he's exactly where he belongs, as a criminal defendant. <br /></p><p>As they say, what goes around, comes around.</p><p>So on to the speech, shall we?</p><p>One year ago, I wrote <a href="https://jamesiska.blogspot.com/2022/06/logical-fallacies.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">this piece</span></b></a> on logical fallacies, that is to say, arguments that do not reasonably follow from their premises. In my post I listed about a dozen categories of logical fallacies (there are many more) and can honestly say the exPRES used virtually all of them Tuesday evening.</p><p>Here I'll mention only three, the ones with fancy Latin names, just because they make me sound smart:</p><p>Logical fallacy number one: <b>The post hoc, ergo propter hoc</b> <b>fallacy </b>with not a little hyperbole thrown in. On Tuesday evening, the exPOTUS opened his speech with this:</p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>The ridiculous and baseless indictment of me by the Biden
administration’s weaponized Department of Injustice (sic) will go down as
among the most horrific abuses of power in the history of our country.</i></blockquote> Post hoc, ergo propter hoc, in English "after this therefore because of this", concerns the misconception that subsequent events are necessarily connected to preceding ones. In this case, the exPOTUS's legal prosecution follows the presidency of Joe Biden, therefore according to him, the Biden administration, and specifically Biden himself, are directly responsible for the prosecution of the exPOTUS. <p></p><p>The following is the core argument of the exPOTUS: </p><p><i>A corrupt administration, Biden's, is actively prosecuting a political rival who is likely to face him in the 2024 presidential election. </i></p><p>This is a very serious charge, one that should never be taken lightly, especially in a democracy. <br /></p><p>We'll never know if Joe Biden is directly or indirectly responsible for the prosecution of 45, but logic and everything I've seen up to this point leads me to believe that both are extremely unlikely. For starters, the current president has bent over backwards to distance himself from his predecessor. He has made it abundantly clear that in his administration, the Justice Department works independently of the Office of the President, as it is designed to do. To further that point, an independent counsel, <b>Jack Smith</b> was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, to investigate and if necessary, prosecute this case, further distancing Biden and the Justice Department from the travails of the exPOTUS. </p><p>OK but what if Biden is lying and really <b>is</b> working behind the scenes to ensure that the case against the exPRES moves forward? That's where logic comes in.</p><p>Joe Biden is not a dumb man. He understands that 45 needs attention, even negative attention, like a fire needs oxygen in order to survive. I believe that if the current president truly is working behind the scenes to remove the exPOTUS from the race, he would do everything in his power to <b>avoid </b>giving 45 more oxygen in the form of public attention. The media circus that has developed around 45's two indictments, and surely more to come, is the last thing Biden needs if he is truly afraid of the exPOTUS and wants to keep him out of the headlines. <br /></p><p>Biden also knows that 45 (who is hoping to become 47) is a <a href="http://jamesiska.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-biggest-loser.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">proven loser</span></b></a>. While he may be the odds-on favorite to win his party's nomination, he is the least likely of four or five of his Republican opponents to defeat Biden in the general election in 2024. A conviction of the exPOTUS would almost certainly energize more than just the MAGA base to come out to vote for the Republican candidate, whomever that may be. There's no telling where that road might lead but a conviction probably would not be helpful for the Democrats' cause in 2024. <br /></p><p>Furthermore, should 45 be convicted, you can bank on any future Republican administration, with or without the exPOTUS in charge, much like the Mob, seeking retribution and coming after Biden and his family in Congress and the courts with all their might. </p><p>Which leads us to the following cliche, currently the mantra of the Republican Party:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjddxrKNC7t7fd8Asd23x7Wnuk9riwdbkq6Zov2jvNl__4bL5WVvfnck8g_JcpvK4zwKJz8tNKTPri06tmkd57N4nU9olsGsYnBFWwI2AxDRtsfEJc9Dw1cHGup6cvY4MhaK6Kj06mq4NGTC_xCfOjO8dBAJyIpn8WstjJkEgW_3-rHlIn_qX8pnkP/s1000/Daffy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="678" data-original-width="1000" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjddxrKNC7t7fd8Asd23x7Wnuk9riwdbkq6Zov2jvNl__4bL5WVvfnck8g_JcpvK4zwKJz8tNKTPri06tmkd57N4nU9olsGsYnBFWwI2AxDRtsfEJc9Dw1cHGup6cvY4MhaK6Kj06mq4NGTC_xCfOjO8dBAJyIpn8WstjJkEgW_3-rHlIn_qX8pnkP/w400-h271/Daffy.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>The exPOTUS said as much Tuesday promising that if elected president in 2024, he:</p><blockquote><i>...will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family.</i></blockquote><p>In other words, he would do exactly what he is accusing Biden of wrongly doing right now, weaponize his Justice Department against his political enemies. </p><p>Unlikely as it may be, it is not inconceivable that 45 could become 47 in '24 and I certainly wouldn't put it past him to do just that, or at least try. After all, he has a proven track record as president of using his attorney general as his personal attorney. </p><p>Simply put, no matter how much Joe Biden would like to see justice done, prosecuting 45 does not work in the current president's self-interest. It seems ridiculous to me that he would actively work toward that end, rather than letting the chips fall where they may, which I have no doubt is exactly what he's doing.</p><p>Logical fallacy number two: <b>The tu quoque fallacy.</b><br /></p><p>Translated into English, "you too", the tu quoque fallacy occurs when rather than explaining one's own position, someone turns an argument back on the opponent, citing inconsistencies or hypocrisy in their position. A more current and familiar term is "whatboutism". In the speech after his latest indictment, 45 spent a considerable amount of time listing other prominent figures who did what he is charged for, wrongfully maintaining records of government information, some of it highly classified, in their possession after leaving office. The exPOTUS was indicted for his actions while the others were not. This is correct. What he conveniently left out is that all the others he mentioned, the Clintons, Joe Biden and Mike Pence, all cooperated with authorities to return the material in their possession back to the government. </p><p>In stark contrast, 45 did not cooperate, in fact according to the indictment, he went to extreme, illegal measures to prevent the government from getting their hands on the documents, many of them containing very sensitive information regarding national security.</p><p>As a friend commented on Facebook: comparing 45's acts to those of the other politicians "is not like comparing apples to oranges, it's comparing apples to hand grenades."</p><p>Logical fallacy number three:<b> The ad hominem attack.</b></p><p>Attacking the opponent, rather than addressing the argument, is what defines the ad hominem (to the person) fallacy. It also happens to be the favorite rhetorical device of the exPOTUS. It's almost inconceivable to think of a 45 speech without hearing stock put downs like "these are very bad people" or "this is a low IQ individual" or "so and so is a nasty person" if the target happens to be a woman. Like a schoolyard bully, the bigger the threat to 45, the harsher the put down. The really privileged get a personal nickname. Who could ever forget "Crooked Hillary" Clinton or "Rocket Man" Kim Jung Un?</p><p>Perhaps the biggest threat the exPRES has ever experienced up to this point in his career is the Special Counsel in this case. True to form, he is the beneficiary of the harshest nickname of them all, "Deranged" Jack Smith. I imagine the nickname doesn't come from Smith's highly regarded professional reputation, but from his headshot that made the rounds, where he's sporting a full beard and an intense gaze, making him look shall we say, a little sinister. But as we all know, you can't judge a book by its cover, Smith's work on this case has shown nothing but intelligence, thoroughness and competence, very unfortunate indeed for the exPRES. No wonder he hates him so.</p><p>Then there's his name. 45 displayed some of his tribal instincts when he said:" I wonder what his real name is. Jack Smith, sounds so innocent, doesn't it?" I guess to him, a white guy with a very common Anglo-Saxon name is someone he would automatically trust, as opposed to someone with a name like Barack Hussein Obama for an example.</p><p><br /></p><p>What these logical fallacies have in common is they deflect from the issue at hand, in this case the crimes the exPOTUS is accused of committing. In fact, all the defenses I've heard from apologists for the exPOTUS, both the true believers and those who are simply afraid of crossing him and maybe getting a nickname of their own, have not once addressed what is actually in the indictment. "I guess..." suggested one commentator, "you can't defend the indefensible." Instead, they just throw a bunch of nonsense against the wall to see what sticks. (I do love that <span aria-level="1" class="yKMVIe" role="heading">cliché</span>).</p><p>On Tuesday evening however, the exPOTUS did bring up the charges.</p><p>Logical fallacies alone do not invalidate a premise. Claiming that an issue cannot be true because its defender uses faulty logic is known as the fallacy fallacy, I kid you not.</p><p>Making stuff up is another story.</p><p>The secondary argument of the exPOTUS is this:</p><p><i>I did have the documents in my possession, but I had every right to do so. </i></p><p>During his Tuesday speech, the exPOTUS kept bringing up the "Presidential Records Act" which he claimed gives presidents leeway to take their time in order to make the decision as to which records could be kept and which should be relinquished.</p><p>I must say 45 made a good case for himself citing an act of Congress from 1978 that I'm assuming few average Americans, myself included, knew much if anything about. Given my ignorance on the subject, I did what most reasonable people would do, I looked it up, not hard to do these days. </p><p>Lo and behold, The Presidential Records Act states exactly the opposite of what the exPOTUS claimed.</p><p>According to the Presidential Records Act of 1978, the president is required to relinquish ALL documents relating to affairs of the government, classified or not, as soon as he or she leaves office. </p><p>This is neither my opinion nor conjecture, it is an unequivocal fact. Here is section 2022 of the Act which deals with the ownership of presidential records:</p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><p><i>The United States shall reserve and retain complete ownership, possession, and control of Presidential records; and such records shall be administered in accordance with the provisions of this chapter.</i></p></blockquote><div>And from Section 2203, dealing with the management and custody of presidential records: </div><blockquote><i>Upon the conclusion of a President's term of office, or if a President serves consecutive terms upon the conclusion of the last term, the Archivist of the United States shall assume responsibility for the custody, control, and preservation of, and access to, the Presidential records of that President. The Archivist shall have an affirmative duty to make such records available to the public as rapidly and completely as possible consistent with the provisions of this chapter.</i></blockquote><p>If you don't believe me or think I'm taking this out of context, you can read for yourself the Presidential Records Act <a href="44 USC Ch. 22: PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS (house.gov)" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">here</span></b></a>. </p><p>Of course, 45 is only preaching to the choir. He has so little faith in the curiosity and the intelligence of his followers, that he doesn't think twice about telling them easily debunked falsehoods, assuming they wouldn't dare question him. For many I'm afraid, that's true. 45 could tell them up is down and down is up and before you know it, they'd be walking on their hands. </p><p>Unquestioning people like these can be easily manipulated, so when a former president whom they adore tells them as he did last Tuesday:</p><p></p><blockquote><p><i>They're not coming after me, they're coming after you.</i></p><p></p></blockquote><p>They believe him. A lot of them do.</p><p>And as Republican former gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake so eloquently pointed out, many of them have guns. </p><p>So, this week when friends and family members asked me what I thought about the indictment, I responded with the most pertinent <span aria-level="1" class="yKMVIe" role="heading">cliché</span> of all:</p><p>We have to be careful what we wish for. </p>James Iskahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219990004487304003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5271409126833086486.post-83580121311447593882023-05-29T19:16:00.016-05:002023-05-31T07:21:34.362-05:00Our New Normal<p>On this day, May 29, 2023 we Americans observe Memorial Day, the day we honor the men and women of our armed services who gave their lives in the service of our country. It is right and just that we do this. We must never forget them and their sacrifice. </p><p>During my childhood, my family had a tradition of visiting the graves of our deceased family members on Memorial Day, whether they were veterans or not. It was right and just that we did that too.</p><p>Last Memorial Day came directly on the heels of the beginning of Russia's war in Ukraine, inspiring me to dedicate my <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://jamesiska.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-lives-they-lived.html" target="_blank">last Memorial Day post </a></span></b>to "the people who through no fault of their own, get caught up in war." I then went on to liken Ukrainians and civilians in war zones all over the world, killed while going about their everyday lives, to people in this country going about their daily lives who are killed in gun violence. </p><p>It is also right and just to do this.</p><p>Because perhaps every Memorial Day from now on, we will be reminded of two specific days of infamy in our own country, the anniversaries of two American massacres that occurred just before the holiday last year, to be exact: May 14, 2022, at a <b>Tops Grocery Store</b> in Buffalo, New York, and May 24, 2022 at <b>Robb Elementary School</b> in Uvalde, Texas. </p><p>Yet another truly horrifying and repulsive thing is this: in our day there are more mass shootings in the United States in one year than there are days in a year, so one can mark the anniversary of a mass shooting practically every day of the year. Worse still, the number of mass shooting victims is a small fraction of the total number of victims of gun violence in this country.</p><p>In 2022, according to the web site <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://www.thetrace.org/2022/12/gun-violence-deaths-statistics-america/" target="_blank">The Trace</a></span></b>, 20,138 gun deaths, (not including suicides), occurred in the United States. That number was a slight decrease from the previous record-setting year.</p><p>Now consider this: inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, there are 58,318 names of all the U.S. service men and women who either died or were MIA during that conflict which for us lasted between 1955 and 1975. </p><p>You do the math.</p><p>This is our new normal. There are so many gun tragedies in our country that unless they are particularly horrific in terms of the number or age of the victims, or the reasons why they were killed, we hardly notice anymore.</p><p>It's tempting to find a single culprit for these horrible statistics, but there are many. According to<b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate" target="_blank"> this Wikipedia chart</a></span></b> which is quite out of date, for every 100 people in the United States, there were 120 guns. That number is significantly higher today. Number two on the list is Serbia with a paltry 37.2 guns for every 100 people followed by Canada, with 34.7 guns for every 100 people, and Finland with 32.4. If you remove the U.S. from that equation, it is obvious that the number of guns per person in a country, does not necessarily correlate with a high gun-murder rate.</p><p>The countries with the highest gun-murder rates in the world are concentrated in one geographical area, Central America and parts of South America, with Venezuela and El Salvador far and away leading the pack with 36.75 and 36.34 gun related deaths per 100,000 people respectively, according to a recent web site from <span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b><a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-deaths-by-country" target="_blank">World Popluation Review</a></b></span>. According to that site, those numbers are attributable to "the prevalence of criminal gangs and a vibrant drug trafficking industry." In El Salvador, at least according to the older Wikipedia list, there were only 5.8 guns per 100 people in 2015. By contrast, Serbia, Finland and Canada all with about seven times the number of guns-per-capita, had 4.8, 2.9 and 2.3 gun-=murders per 100K people respectively.</p><p>From the World Population Review list, the United States experienced 10.89 firearm related deaths per 100K in the past year, a rate comparable to those of Uruguay, Paraguay and Panama.</p><p>If one only looks at these numbers, gun rights advocates have a point when they say limiting the number of guns available to the general public is not going to eliminate gun violence.</p><p>But what do we make of the off-the-charts number of guns in this country? Remember, there are almost four times as many guns-per-capita in the States than in Serbia, the country second place in that category the world.</p><p>My take is that with all those guns available, it is stupid easy to get your hands on one in this country, be you a responsible gun owner, a run-of-the-mill criminal, or a sociopath. And with few meaningful restrictions on the sale, manufacture, possession and the carrying of firearms in many U.S. states, and even more lax restrictions on the way, it's only going to become more stupidly easy in the future. </p><p>True, the U.S. is not in the top twenty in the world in terms of gun-murder rate, it's number 22, according to the WPR list. That's hardly a bragging right.</p><p>But as far as public mass shootings go, along with per-capita gun ownership, we are in a class all by ourselves. </p><p>The connection may be purely anecdotal, but I don't think so. Gun rights activists claim other culprits for the preponderance of mass shootings in this country, mental health being number one. </p><p>I don't buy it. As far as I know, there are people with mental health issues everywhere in the world, not just in the States. I'm not even convinced that all perpetrators of mass shootings <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://www.columbiapsychiatry.org/news/mass-shootings-and-mental-illness" target="_blank">are indeed mentally ill.</a> </span></b>There are certainly millions of people in this country and elsewhere with mental health issues who would not harm anyone, let alone commit mass murder. I'm all in on making mental health a priority in this nation. But the emphasis on mental illness being a major cause of violence is no more than a smokescreen from the issue of gun legislation and an excuse to stigmatize and marginalize yet another group of people. </p><p>Regardless, the one thing we have that nobody else does here in the good ol' U.S.A., along with a mass shooting or two every day, is unfettered access to guns. </p><p>What IS sick are politicians looking for gun lobby money and a few extra votes, people who could make a difference to save at least some lives, wearing lapel pins in the likeness of AR-15 assault rifles, the preferred weapon of mass shooters. </p><p>What a slap in the face to the people who lost loved ones to those weapons of mass destruction. </p><p>They may as well piss on the graves of our fallen soldiers, seamen, airmen and women. I have no doubt that in exchange for money and a vote or two, they would do just that.</p><p><br /></p>James Iskahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219990004487304003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5271409126833086486.post-73925503897405180662023-05-08T21:15:00.013-05:002023-05-21T10:28:48.486-05:00Angry White People<p>Much of the political divide in this nation right now is focused between two distinct groups, angry white people, and everybody else. This subject has gotten a lot of attention lately after the recent departure of Tucker Carlson from FOX "News". In his role over there, Carlson as you probably know, cast himself in the role of chief defender, spokesperson and provocateur for tens of millions of angry white Americans.</p><p>On his show he typically addressed his devoted viewers as "YOU." That "you" was a means to distinguish his followers, or as Carlson put it, "Legacy Americans", from THEY, everyone who is not an angry white person.</p><p>Typical Tuckerisms include: </p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>THEY'RE coming after YOU,</i> <br /></li><li><i>THEY'RE taking your rights away from YOU</i>, and most sinister of all: </li><li><i>THEY hate YOU.</i></li></ul><p>Unfortunately Carlson is not alone in riling up white people,. The machines that drive <b>both </b>sides of the ideological divide in this country from politicians, members of the press, pundits and other public figures, to lowly bloggers such as myself, in our words and deeds, only exacerbate that anger, further dividing the country. </p><p>So why are so many white people so angry? Google that question and you'll find all sorts of explanations, some logical, some let's just say, far reaching. </p><p>Here in Chicago and in several comparable American cities, there is a complicated historical force at work that contributes to white rage.<br /></p><p>I've been thinking about it since I wrote <a href="https://jamesiska.blogspot.com/2011/07/little-flower.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">this piece</span></b></a> twelve years ago about a South Side Chicago Roman Catholic parish that closed its doors largely because of so called "white flight" from the neighborhood as black people moved in. That piece continues to be one of the most viewed posts on this blog. It struck a nerve as it has received by far the greatest number of negative comments of anything I have ever written. </p><p>I tried to be balanced in my assessment of why white people have historically moved out of neighborhoods in Chicago as soon as black people moved in. In the piece I cited institutional policies and greedy individuals who took advantage of people's fear, all of which contributed to white flight. Then I said: </p><p></p><blockquote><i>It would be easy to make a blanket condemnation of white people picking
up stakes and leaving their neighborhood based on the threat of change... <br /></i>
<i><br />
Yet, next to our children, the biggest investment most of us have is our
home. As much as we all would like to be community minded, the bottom
line is that most of us need to look out for ourselves and our families
first. "Get out before it's too late and you lose your investment..."
may not be the most altruistic or public-spirited advice, but one
certainly cannot say that it is not prudent. </i></blockquote><p></p><p>I went into more detail<span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b> <a href="http://jamesiska.blogspot.com/2023/03/winter-and-pulaski-and-madison.html" target="_blank">in my recent post on West Garfield Park</a> </b></span>about housing covenants, redlining, contract selling, and other</p><p></p><blockquote><i>...pernicious discriminatory practices that all but guaranteed segregation in the city and second-class status to people of color.</i></blockquote><p></p><p>Despite taking the blame of white flight largely off the shoulders of most (but not all) average white homeowners, some folks reading the piece still took issue when I wrote that in addition to all those things I just mentioned, racism was also part of the mix. <br /></p><p>I stand by that statement.</p><p>But here's the thing, there's racism, then there's racism. One type of racism leads people to dress up in white sheets, give Nazi salutes, and march with tiki torches while chanting "we will not be replaced." The other is nuanced and from my experience, to some extent lives in <b>all of us.</b> If someone tells you he "doesn't have a racist bone in his body", rest assured he either lacks the self-awareness to recognize it or is flat out lying to you.<br /></p><p>For good reason, "Racist" in our society is one of the most devastating accusations that can be leveled against a person, as people by nature associate the word with the former, the unequivocal, un-nuanced, heil-Hitler form of racism.</p><p>But today, the word is thrown about with such reckless abandon, especially by the Left, that it has virtually lost its meaning, but not its offense. </p><p>Another term that needs to be judiciously reconsidered is "white privilege."</p><p>There's privilege, then there's privilege. The former comes through access to money, higher education and personal connections, among other things. The latter privilege is something that should be enjoyed by <b>everyone </b>who lives in a free society. Unfortunately, far too many of us, especially people of color, are often denied many of those privileges. Therefore, "white privilege" which for the record I believe is a real thing, is not something bestowed upon white people, but rather, something that is taken away from others. </p><p>Yet like racism, the word privilege evokes a very specific image to most people.</p><p>Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson, heir to the TV Dinner fortune, is undisputedly a man of great privilege in <b>every </b>sense of the word. The vast majority of his audience which is mostly white, does not enjoy the kind of privilege Carlson and the proverbial one percent of Americans have, and never will. </p><p>Since Carlson is nothing if not two-faced, it's difficult to know exactly who he is or what he really believes. Judging from his public words, and now his publicly distributed private words, Carlson is likely also a racist in every sense of the word. I'll go out on a limb here and state that the same is probably <b>not </b>true of much of his audience, although I haven't a clue how much. </p><p><br /></p><p>I read two books in preparation for my recent post about the Chicago neighborhood of <b>West Garfield Park</b>. The first was: <i>Redlined: A Memoir of Race, Change, and Fractured Community in 1960s Chicago</i>, by <b>Linda Gartz</b>. Gartz writes about growing up in the West Side neighborhood where both she and her father spent their formative years. Linda's formative years coincided with the drastic population shift of the community which went from virtually 100 percent white in 1950, to virtually 100 percent black in 1970. <br /></p><p>In 1968, the neighborhood was hit particularly hard during the riots
that took place after the assassination of Martin Luther King. In the
subsequent decades, between 1970 and 2020, West Garfield Park lost
nearly two thirds of its population. Unlike the vast majority of their fellow white West Garfield Parkers, Gartz's family remained, at least as landlords, (they moved out in 1965). As the buildings around theirs crumbled due to vandalism and neglect, Gartz's parents dedicated themselves to the upkeep of their three properties and faithful service to their tenants for the rest of their lives. (They died in the nineties).</p><p>Linda Gartz pulls no punches when describing some of the shortcomings of her family, including her mother's initial response to a black family moving to her block. But she also describes her mom's change of heart as she got to know some of her new neighbors. </p><p>Simply put, the message of the book is that both black and white families in West Garfield Park and other similar communities around the city, were the victims of bad actors, both government and businesses who profited off anger and fear of the white people, and the limited options for black people. The other message is that if we only could get to know one another on a personal basis, maybe we could begin to learn to live together.</p><p>That last point is also one of the messages of<i> Vanishing Eden: White Construction of Memory, Meaning, and Identity in a Racially Changing City. </i>The book was written by <b>Michael T. Maly</b> and <b>Heather M. Dalmage</b>, two professors of sociology at Roosevelt University. The book is based upon Dalmage and Maly's interviews of white folks whose families moved away from the neighborhoods in which they grew up when they began to change racially, and the two sociologists' take on them.</p><p>In all the interviews, the subjects spoke with reverence for the neighborhoods their parents felt compelled to leave. These places are described, as the book's title implies, as virtual paradises, places where everyone knew, cared for and looked out for one another, where the only limitation placed upon kids was to be home as soon as the streetlights came on. </p><p>This all hit home for me as I have similar idyllic memories of my life growing up in Humboldt Park, a couple miles from West Garfield Park. We left the community in 1968 when I was nine, not long after the West Side riots, for the suburb of Oak Park. </p><p>Many of the negative comments to the post mentioned above, implied that as an outsider, I had no idea what I was talking about and had no right to criticize others who experienced something I had not. I pointed out that I did indeed have "skin in the game", bringing up my Humboldt Park experience. </p><p>At one point in reading <i>Vanishing Eden</i> however, it dawned on me that I was being disingenuous. In describing the factors leading people to change neighborhoods, the authors distinguished between being pulled away or pushed away. </p><p>A few weeks ago, I asked my mother what was the factor that made her and my father decide to leave the neighborhood in which she had lived for nearly thirty years. She told me about an incident that took place while she was walking to the corner store, (a classic example of the bygone days). On her way, someone spit on her from a second-floor window. "That was it.." she said, "we were out of there." OK my mother doesn't talk like that, but you get the picture. </p><p>Thinking about it however, that incident, unpleasant as it was, was not the reason we left Humboldt Park. We left because we were living in a small rental apartment in a residential hotel building in which my grandmother was the manager. Both my parents had good jobs, both had cars, and money to afford to buy a house in the suburbs. In other words, they were acting out the "American Dream" just like the vast majority of their peers at the time. Long story short, we would have moved regardless, the spitting incident only hastened the act. </p><p>In contrast, the families of the people interviewed in Vanishing Eden for the most part had already realized the "American Dream" of owning a home. Many were working class folks who had to save and sacrifice for years to achieve that goal and once there, had no intention of giving it up. Had external forces not intervened pushing them out of their beloved homes, they or their descendants might still be there.</p><p>Naturally there was great bitterness once their neighborhood changed. As I pointed out in the West Garfield Park piece, most of these folks knew nothing about the bad actors Linda Gartz speaks of in her book. What they knew was what they saw with their own eyes: time and again, once a neighborhood in Chicago went from white to black, it deteriorated rapidly. Given that, it's not too hard to figure who they came to blame.</p><p>In her book, Linda Gartz mentions that growing up, she and her family knew no black people personally. While I didn't have a great deal of close contact with black people as a small child either, one of the most memorable persons from my life in Humboldt Park was the contracted painter in our building, a black man by the name of Rogers. As my grandma ran the hotel, I got to know all the people who had a stake in the building from the owners to the janitor. Honestly I liked them all, but Rogers was especially kind to me, and I'd say he and I were as close to being genuine friends as a grown man of thirty-something and an eight-year-old child possibly could be.</p><p>Further background in my development, I have no childhood memory of my parents ever making a disparaging remark about black people. In fact, as I pointed out in this space at least a couple times, after I reported to them some nasty racial comments made by the parents of my best friend at the time, my parents told me in no uncertain terms that my friend's parents were wrong. As my father would always say: "people are people." I will forever be grateful for that.</p><p>It wasn't until we moved to Oak Park that I experienced virulent racism. It was tough entering a new school in fifth grade where virtually all the kids had known each other since kindergarten. I met a kid in my class who seemed nice enough. He was smart and would actually talk to me without condescension. It turns out that he too was a new kid at the school, also having recently moved from the West Side. One day in the playground much to my surprise, he told me he and his family were moving again. When I asked why he said "because nig--rs moved onto our block and there's no way in hell we're going to live with them." Even at my young age I understood that while they came out of this ten year old boy's mouth, those weren't his words. </p><p>Perhaps he was one of the people interviewed by Professors Maly and Dalmage for their book. Some of the interviewees while not being that candid about their feelings, were quite brazen by today's standards about expressing their bitterness and distrust of black people. One particularly disgusting excerpt is a couple recounting something that took place after moving to a new, all-white neighborhood. They were having a garage sale and a couple of black teenagers from another neighborhood bought a bicycle from them. As they walked through the alley with their new bike, a couple of neighbors who were cops chased after the kids and jumped them, assuming they had stolen the bike. The most disturbing part is that in recounting the story years later, the couple telling it were laughing, finding the whole incident amusing. </p><p><i>Vanishing Eden</i> is a revealing book, not only in the attitudes of its subjects, but also the attitudes of the authors, whose own bias comes through clearly.</p><p>The first clue comes from the book's cover illustration which features a faded photograph appearing to have been made in the fifties of a smiling white boy, three or four years old, sitting in a Radio Flyer wagon in the midst of what appears to be a tidy neighborhood of modest post-war homes. With the exception of the social class depicted, this picture evokes "Leave it to Beaver" and other period pieces that represent to many, a time of lost innocence in this country, all made possible in their minds by white hegemony.</p><p>The subtitle of the book: "White Construction of Memory, Meaning, and Identity in a Radically Changing City" drives home the point that the book's creators don't hold that opinion, and the photograph gracing the cover is there for irony.</p><p><span>In the book they make the point that their subjects view their old neighborhoods through rose colored glasses. To them, before the change everything was perfect and after, everything went to hell. </span></p><p><span>Had they interviewed me about my own childhood experience of Humboldt Park, I would have told them pretty much the same thing, except the going to hell part.</span></p><p><span>The truth is I spent my formative years in Oak Park. I made some of my most cherished friendships there including my oldest and dearest friend, also an emigre from the West Side. I have no such connection to Humboldt Park. In Oak Park I had a back yard and a basement where I had nearly full reign, in addition to my bedroom. Three doors away there was a lovely park where I learned to play tennis. In the winter I went skating and sledding. For all intents and purposes, the "quality" of my life improved exponentially after we moved there. I am who I am today, for better or worse, by virtue of my life in Oak Park. </span></p><p>Yet moving away from Humboldt Park was traumatic for me as things I dearly loved, my friends and the only home I knew, were taken away. Today I have no bad memories of my life in Humboldt Park, even though bad things certainly happened there. For years I mourned losing it and went back every chance I could. Despite there being no rational explanation for it, to this day I still feel in some ways more connected to Humboldt Park than Oak Park. </p><p>Memory is a funny thing.</p><p>It's not surprising to me that folks who left their childhood homes around the same time I did, would have similar memories. It's even less surprising that they would express bitterness had they felt pushed out of their old neighborhood, especially if that idea was constantly enforced by the people closest to them.</p><p>Not many of the subjects in<i> Vanishing Eden</i> come off looking as horrible as the ones I mentioned above. Most of them, forty and more years after the fact (the book was published in 2016), understand the dynamics of race in this country and realize that black people themselves aren't to blame for what happened to their communities. But the authors in no way let these folks off the hook as they all in one way or other, express understanding for their fellow white folks, usually family members, who feel more bitter than they do, thereby "excusing their racism" as the authors put it. </p><p>Thumbing through the book it's difficult to find a page where either the word racism or the term white privilege is not found. The authors are correct in pointing out that many white people who experienced white flight to this day have no intention of living on the same block as a black person Somehow, they weren't able to come up with any white flight veterans who had no problem living with black people. </p><p>I wonder why.<br /></p><p>They could have asked Linda Gartz. Perhaps the most revealing part of her book is where she mentions how during the civil rights movement of the sixties, her parents sympathized with the plight of black people in American South. That feeling didn't extend to the blacks who were moving into their neighborhood. This NIMBY (not in my backyard) attitude is not unusual, it's one of the less flattering parts of human nature.</p><p>On the same token, it's completely understandable why white people who experienced making the difficult decision of moving out of a changing neighborhood, would feel put off being judged by other white people who had no such experience. I imagine it would be doubly irritating for working class folks to have people with more money, education and influence, people who could afford to live anywhere they pleased, including affluent predominantly white suburbs, accuse them of racism and exercising their "white privilege", just for wanting their families to be able to live in peace and safety.</p><p>I don't know the personal backgrounds of Professors Dalmage and Maly. From their profile photographs, they appear to both be white. I can't say if either had the experience of living in a racially changing neighborhood. Dalmage was born in the mid-sixties and Maly in the eighties making them both too young, especially Maly, to have experienced the height of the era of white flight. </p><p>It's clear they have an agenda, not a misguided one, reminding us that we'd all be better off if we learned how to get to know one another. Where they err in my opinion, is they make the same mistake they accuse their subjects of, they lack a sense of empathy. </p><p>In my piece on the baseball player <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://jamesiska.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-georgia-peach.html" target="_blank">Ty Cobb</a></span></b>, I embedded a powerful interview with the great Negro League ballplayer, coach, manager, and historian <b>John "Buck" O'Neil</b>. In that interview, O'Neil refuses to condemn people for being racists. Everybody has their own mountain to climb he suggests. "Babies aren't born prejudiced", O'Neil said, someone had to teach them to be that way. <br /></p><p>Had Rogers and other good people like him not entered my life, had I spent my first years in West Garfield Park rather than Humboldt Park, had we not moved to Oak Park allowing me to meet the amazing people who would become my lifelong friends... </p><p>Had a slew of other things that happened by chance in my life making me who I am today not happened, and most of all, had I not had parents who set me straight and taught me that the most important lesson in life is that "people are people", my outlook on the world may have been very different.<br /></p><p>Had things been different, I too may have ended up being an angry white guy, falling prey to bad actors like the neighborhood busters, Tucker Carlson and the rest, teaching me to fear and distrust anyone who is different from me.</p><p>"There but by the grace of God go I" they say.</p><p>I think everyone of good will needs to keep that in mind.</p>James Iskahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219990004487304003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5271409126833086486.post-47689880970829130672023-04-12T07:30:00.025-05:002023-04-15T11:42:18.864-05:00They Dropped the Puck This Time...<p> ... and not to start the game.</p><p>2010 was a good year for me. It started when my wife and I had the opportunity to visit <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://jamesiska.blogspot.com/2010/03/falling-in-love-with-city.html" target="_blank">London </a></span></b>for the first time. Then halfway through the year, the unthinkable happened. My favorite sports team in the world, the Chicago Blackhawks won the <b>Stanley Cup</b>. It was not the first time in my life they won the Cup, they won it when I was two years old, a little before I started caring about hockey and just about anything else. As far as hockey is concerned, it was indeed just a little bit before I started caring about the game as you can read <a href="https://jamesiska.blogspot.com/2010/05/provenance-of-sports-fan.html" target="_blank"><b>here</b></a>.</p><p>The Cup itself is one of the most emblematic and recognized trophies in all of sports. For starters, unlike other trophies such as soccer's World Cup, and whatever they call the thing they hand out to the winner of the MLB World Series, there is only one Stanley Cup; a new version of it is not recast and handed out for each championship team to keep. </p><p>As such, the Stanley Cup gets around. The tradition is that every member of the Cup winning team gets to spend a day with the trophy, doing with it whatever he pleases, within reason. There are a couple of guys whose job it is to accompany the Cup wherever it goes to I assume, enforce the within reason part. </p><p>Most players take the opportunity to share the cup with people who are special to them, often in their hometown which given the international nature of the game, means the Cup logs hundreds of thousands of airline miles every year. </p><p>If the Cup could talk as they say, boy the stories it would tell.</p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLlDBQAJNfaoWsPgLc_jCB-OB0kHpMD_NQz1XyHDxuBujztu_-GZfngipVThzxaG9XoStzqbnmaRgi7Pe3SLlCRMmO7r3QXFeRRouJDm3iNKL-vj22-l_yBmbeaoo_sqPcArzZA4czNivWK_xLhacKI_p7gcXREl9A3R3DeNIlGaCXAe0jUH6WnRcx/s610/stanley.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="416" data-original-width="610" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLlDBQAJNfaoWsPgLc_jCB-OB0kHpMD_NQz1XyHDxuBujztu_-GZfngipVThzxaG9XoStzqbnmaRgi7Pe3SLlCRMmO7r3QXFeRRouJDm3iNKL-vj22-l_yBmbeaoo_sqPcArzZA4czNivWK_xLhacKI_p7gcXREl9A3R3DeNIlGaCXAe0jUH6WnRcx/s320/stanley.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Patrick Kane and Lord Stanley's Cup, Chicago, 2010<br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>Another great tradition, in the days immediately following winning the NHL championship, the team shares the Cup with its community.<p></p><p>For example in 2015, after the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup for the third time in six seasons, the team's captain both then and at this writing,<b> Jonathan Toews*</b>, shared it with the patients at <b>Miserecordia Heart of Mercy</b>,<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span>a facility in my neighborhood that serves people with developmental disabilities.</p><p>On June 26, 2010, 15 days after the Blackhawks won their first championship in 49 years, a bit of history was made when the Stanley Cup found itself in a place it had never been, and as far as I can tell, hasn't been since, as the centerpiece of an LGBTQ+ pride parade. </p><p>It was Hawks defenseman <b>Brent Sopel</b> who, with the approval of the team, accepted an invitation from the Chicago Gay Hockey Association to carry the Cup while riding aboard their float in the 41st annual Chicago Pride Parade. His inspiration to participate in the parade was to honor a young hockey player, <b>Brendan Burke</b> who was killed in an automobile accident earlier that year. Two months before his death, Burke had come out, and while Sopel claimed his participation in the parade wasn't to advocate for anything, he added:</p><blockquote><i>...if coming here helps break down walls in the meantime, so be it. </i></blockquote><p>That act did indeed break down at least a few walls. In the words of Bill Gubrud, the founder of the National Gay & Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame, spoken in 2015:</p><blockquote><i>The Blackhawks organization has been very supportive of the gay community for years, starting with the Stanley Cup being in the gay pride parade in 2010 and their numerous contributions to LGBT youth organizations and programs.</i></blockquote>Those walls Sopel spoke of were not insignificant. While much of American society by 2010 had at least tacitly come to terms with accepting people being free to be themselves, the world of men's sports, never known for its progressive leanings was an exception, especially when it came to accepting diverse sexual and gender identities and lifestyles.<div><br /></div><div>Given that, Sopel's decision to participate in the Pride Parade with the Stanley Cup was a gutsy one, which paved the way for the team's and ultimately the National Hockey League's participation in several efforts in the direction of inclusion, by accepting, supporting, and to the cynical among us, selling tickets to members of the LGBTQ+ community.</div><div><br /></div><div>By far the most visible of these outreach efforts are the Pride nights that take place annually in every NHL rink. One of many such events teams devote every season to a particular theme or cause, Pride nights feature many different activities related to the theme. In the NHL, the most noticeable of these is players on the home team donning special jerseys celebrating the theme during their 15-minute pre-game warmup. After the warmup, each jersey is signed by the player who wore it, then offered up for auction to the fans, with the proceeds going to charity. </div><div><br /></div><div>In the case of Pride Night, artists representing the local LGBTQ+ community are commissioned to design jerseys which incorporate the design of the team's regular jerseys with the rainbow theme, emblematic of the community.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's with great pride that I can say the team I've been a fan of for nearly all my life, the Chicago Blackhawks, were trailblazers in this effort when Brent Sopel representing them, proudly carried the Stanley Cup on that float in the Chicago Pride Parade thirteen years ago. </div><div><br /></div><div>In a perfect world, this post would end here. </div><div><br /></div><div>Unfortunately...</div><div><br /></div><div>NHL Pride nights had gone off pretty much without a hitch for several years until a couple months ago. The trouble began when Philadelphia Flyers defenseman <b>Ivan Provarov</b> opted out of wearing the extra-colorful Flyer warmup jersey. Instead, he skipped the warmup, but did play in the game in January against the Anaheim Ducks. Afterwords, Provarov sited his Russian Orthodox religion as the reason for not wearing the jersey. In a brief post-game statement addressing the issue, Provarov said this: </div><blockquote><i>I respect everybody’s choices. My choice is to stay true to myself and my religion. That’s all I’m going to say.</i></blockquote><p>Shortly thereafter, also sighting religious objections, six other NHL players chose to go the same route and sit out their teams' pre-game warmups rather than wear the rainbow-colored warmup jersey.</p><p>This was followed by four teams announcing that while they would go ahead with their own Pride Night celebrations this year, their players would not be wearing the themed jerseys during their warmup. Those teams were the Minnesota Wild, the New York Rangers, the Toronto Maple Leafs and, wait for it... the Chicago Blackhawks. </p><div>The first three teams offered no enlightening comment on their decision. The Blackhawks however came up with a doozy, citing an unlikely scapegoat, Vladimir Putin.</div><div><br /></div><div>Putin you see, has decreed that it is now illegal for Russian citizens to promote anything LBGTQ+. On their current roster, the Blackhawks have three players either from Russia, or of Russian heritage, and out of concerns for their safety the team says, there will be no skating with the special jerseys this year.</div><div><br /></div><div>This is a little puzzling to me for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that an American sports franchise is caving in to the demands of a hostile, sociopathic, foreign dictator. While I understand the concern for the players and perhaps most directly their families currently living in Russia, it seems to me there would have been a simple solution that didn't involve throwing the baby out with the bath water.</div><div><br /></div><div>Simply scratch those players from that particular game (you can do that in the NHL), and replace them with three members of the Hawks' farm team ninety minutes up the road in Rockford. I'm sure those minor league players would be more than happy to warmup in a rainbow-colored jersey in exchange for a chance to skate for one night in the big show. </div><div> </div><div>So why can the event? As one of the worst teams in the NHL this year, the Hawks certainly can't be all that worried about losing yet another game. My guess is that there may have been a few more players on the team who said they wouldn't participate either, and rather than upsetting the apple cart, the Blackhawks played the Putin card. </div><div> </div><div>Not surprisingly, since Provarov's action, this issue has become red meat for the ultra-right cultural warriors among us who are using it as an example of the intolerant-woke-fascist-predator mob "co-opting" the sport of hockey and our lives in general, with their "divisive" political message of love, inclusion and acceptance. </div><div><br /></div><div>For them, push back to Hockey Pride Night is a great victory for freedom of speech, religion and self-expression, something gravely missing they say in our current pinko, libtard, snowflake, ANTIFA-BLM loving, multicultural mess of a society. To the ultra-right, Ivan Provarov is a valiant hero to the cause by saying nyet to the groomers. </div><div><br /></div><div>I beg to differ. </div><div><br /></div><div>For starters, I believe that publicly supporting a group of people who for centuries have been marginalized, abused, persecuted and in some cases murdered just for being who they are, is <b>NOT</b> a political act. It is an act of human decency. If being a decent human being is "woke", then count me in.</div><div> </div><div>When asked after the game in Philly if he had any intention of benching Provarov for missing the warmup, Flyers head coach, John Tortorella, said no, adding that Provarov had every right to "be true to himself" by refusing to wear the jersey and skipping the warmup. </div><div> </div><div>That's very kumbaya of Tortorella who is known for his old school, "there is no 'I' in the word 'team'" approach to his craft. It's also surprising as the same Tortorella a couple years ago emphatically declared he would bench any player who refused to stand for the anthem as a means of protesting injustice in this country. </div><div> </div><div>I guess somebody "being true to himself" counts only to some folks when they agree with what the person is being "true" about.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Retired hockey star<b> PK Subban</b> was featured in a FOX interview where he is quoted as saying that athletes should not be forced into to being "activists".</div><div><br /></div><div>I agree. </div><div><br /></div><div>I would also argue that in this case, no one is asking that of the players. Nobody expects hockey players to march in the streets, write op-ed pieces in the New York Times, or warmup in drag, the last of which is kind of a pity as I would pay good money to see that. </div><div><br /></div><div>As for the players refusing to wear pride jerseys on religious grounds, I would ask them to probe deeply into their hearts as well as their heads, as they listen to these words of San Jose Sharks goalie <b>James Reimer</b>, one of the refuseniks, edited here for brevity and clarity: </div><blockquote><i>...everyone has value and worth. I wish people knew that wasn’t just a line... I have a heart for people. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done in the past, (or) what you do..., I have my beliefs and things that I can’t personally endorse. But man, you love the person, you try and do whatever you can to get to know them...</i></blockquote><div>Reading this, if Reimer is being honest, which I believe he is, he obviously has his heart in the right place. Which makes me think he hasn't thought the whole thing through. He mentions not being able to endorse things he doesn't believe in. That is not only his right but his obligation.</div><div><br /></div><div>However, as with Brent Sopel in 2010, NHL players wearing the rainbow jersey is <b>not in itself </b>an endorsement of alternative lifestyles, but rather an expression of love and acceptance of our fellow human beings, which is EXACTLY what James Reimer says he believes in. Wearing these jerseys in public with your teammates is powerful symbol that the team and the organization <b>flat-out reject</b> bigotry, abuse and hatred. What kind of religion could have a problem with that? </div><div><br /></div><div>OK, plenty, but none I would ever associate with.</div><div><br /></div><div>As such, wearing a pride jersey in the pre-game skate is no more an automatic endorsement of queerness than wearing a green jersey on St. Patrick's Day (which NHL teams routinely do), is an automatic endorsement of the Irish Republican Army. </div><div><br />Thirteen years after the Stanley Cup made its one and only appearance at a pride parade, some things have changed, but not much. At this writing, there is still only one current male North American professional ice hockey player who has come out, and zero in the NHL, which reflects the numbers in other men's sports.</div><div><br /></div><div>There's no reason to believe that the proportion of gay people in sports would be much different from that of the general population, meaning there are probably at least a couple dozen closeted pro hockey players. Given that, I don't think it's farfetched to claim that male sports culture is still toxic when it comes to gay and trans people. If you don't believe me, check out the article: "Nashville Predators hold Pride Night after mass killing carried out by transgender shooter", its ludicrous premise, and the hate-filled comments it inspired, brought to us by the fine folks at FOX Sports. </div><div><br /></div><div>I bring that up because unlike many other fields, when the sports community takes a stand reaching out to the LBGTQ community, they are clearly NOT preaching to the choir. This means their efforts actually can change attitudes, especially among young people. </div><div><br /></div><div>Despite the detractors, lost in all this is the fact that there has been overwhelming support of NHL Pride nights among the players. Sadly because of the detractors, there is speculation that NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is considering mothballing Hockey Pride Night after this season. That would be a real shame.</div><div><br /></div><div>In my view, if they are able to reach a handful of kids who by seeing their heroes wearing the rainbow colors, might think twice about their own negative views of people who are different from themselves, if they reach a handful of LGBTQ athletes to let them know they are welcome members of the community, and most important, if their efforts help make lives just a little better for a handful of gay and trans kids who are suffering with depression and suicidal thoughts, then the effort will have been worth it, in spades. </div><div><br /></div><div>Let's face it, haters are going to hate, that's been the story of human existence since time immemorial. It's high time we stop letting them have the final say.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>* </b>On Thursday, April 13, Jonathan Toews most likely played his last game as a Chicago Blackhawk, capping off his brilliant 15-year career with the team.</div><div><br /><div> </div></div>James Iskahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219990004487304003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5271409126833086486.post-57893018505204256932023-04-01T11:28:00.012-05:002023-04-02T11:08:02.102-05:00Opening Day<p>Breaking with tradition, although not for the first time, this year I let opening day of baseball in Chicago pass without note for two whole days. Perhaps because for the life of me, I can't understand why baseball should played be in March, at least in this part of the country where the temperatures are still hovering around freezing. </p><p>It's still cold outside, but today is the first day of April and I'm ready to think about baseball. </p><p>That said, I've already sat through an entire ballgame this year. One day before MLB opening day, my son's college team came to town to play the team from the University of Chicago. It was a thrilling game with many scoring opportunities, yet scoreless until the top of the seventh inning when one of my son's teammates, the best player on the team, with no one on base, hit an opposite field home run. </p><p>Then the game got really interesting in the bottom of the ninth. With nobody on and the home team down to their last strike, AND everybody ready to leave because it was SO damn cold, their batter managed to poke the ball between our first and second basemen for a single, then stole second on the first pitch to the next batter. He advanced to third on an infield hit and before we knew it, the tying and winning runs were on base. But after a seemingly endless at bat, the next batter popped to second ending the game, our good guys winning 1-0.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvay343z98DhHlV9-CCUFOhcSwmOAK4MjbjY7id-GPfrsPQMZbBTMQLxjmUC6gfqhb1dER3OQPaU3bNo6pJSyKr9Z5_ua_2MhUy8yhkkieTSaPX53l0Zv_to2S2rAUkr7xX5qKwK2_uiJP2Shf18Ko1Hh69e3fc4s-Bi6VlpoGpC5iqO7utbKHBrTU/s1280/IMG_1132.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1035" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvay343z98DhHlV9-CCUFOhcSwmOAK4MjbjY7id-GPfrsPQMZbBTMQLxjmUC6gfqhb1dER3OQPaU3bNo6pJSyKr9Z5_ua_2MhUy8yhkkieTSaPX53l0Zv_to2S2rAUkr7xX5qKwK2_uiJP2Shf18Ko1Hh69e3fc4s-Bi6VlpoGpC5iqO7utbKHBrTU/w324-h400/IMG_1132.jpg" width="324" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Why I'll never be a sports photographer.<br />This is the pitch <b>before </b>the pitch this batter hit over the right field fence.<br />Being superstitious, I photographed every subsequent batter on our team but to no avail.<br />That home run would be our team's only run, but it proved to be enough.<br />How can anyone not love this game?</td></tr></tbody></table><p>My son didn't play, nor has he played all season. In fact, in this his final year of college, he's only had a few at bats these last four years, mostly during scrimmage games or fall ball where the games don't count. </p><p>Yet unlike the majority of kids he played baseball with and against in his life, from tee ball to Little League, from travel ball to Pony League and high school, he can honestly say he was a member of a college baseball team. He even managed to hit a legitimate fence-clearing home run in a scrimmage game last fall, perhaps the single greatest moment of his baseball career. </p><p>That's something he'll be able to tell his children and grandchildren.</p><p>Last month my cousin Betty and I were talking about the fickle fate of being a ballplayer and I mentioned to her that at times I feel guilty for setting my boy up for perpetual heartache by not warning him years ago that the chances against life as a professional baseball player are astronomical. My cousin, one of the wisest people I know told me no, that was something he had to discover for himself. Otherwise he'd forever have the question in the back of his mind that maybe he could have made it, if only his father hadn't discouraged him.</p><p>That made me feel better, if only for a moment. </p><p>As a senior, he may be hanging up the cleats for good at the end of this season, but I've said that before.</p><p>The look on his face when he saw us show up in the near-freezing cold for a game in which he was certain not to play, was priceless. If only I could bottle it.</p><p>My son loves baseball more than words can describe. Somehow, I imagine he will continue to be involved in the game in one way or other.</p><p>God bless him. </p><p>So, throwing all caution to the wind, I continue to encourage him as best I can.<br /></p><p>Play ball Theo!</p><p><br /></p>James Iskahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219990004487304003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5271409126833086486.post-37907268596613923682023-03-18T22:54:00.007-05:002023-03-19T09:42:17.442-05:00Winter, and Pulaski and Madison<p>If you saw my last post, you know it was based upon my comments to the items on a list compiled by<i> Time Out Chicago</i> of things<i> </i>Chicagoans would like to see "ghosted" in this city. (The original list was published last Halloween, hence the term). Most of the items on the list were general in nature, things like traffic, the weather, food, certain biases of Chicagoans, etc. However, one item stood out to me as it mentioned along with the weather, a very specific place in the city which inspired a post of its own, actually two posts.</p><p>Here's the item:</p><blockquote><p><b>Winter, and Pulaski and Madison.<br /></b><br />I don't have a
problem with winter in Chicago, in the winter that is. I'm not too crazy
about winter in April and May however, which is not uncommon here.</p><div><div>I
do have a personal connection with the area around Pulaski and Madison
on the West Side of Chicago as long ago, it was the location of my
pediatrician's office. </div><div><br /></div><div>Consequently, I will
always associate it with the painful shot in the rear end I would receive at the end of each visit. Perhaps the commenter who singled out
this specific corner of the city has a similar association with it. </div></div></blockquote><blockquote><div><div>But I doubt it.</div><div> </div></div><div> </div><div></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiqpQNx3sRuaG_L-9gf62qvhYlAZ8VktQ5PRVLaV8Qs0WopsOt2RUoJpcb0awtS5PmqOQ1Xt46aB-hgOryzXfACKfbRmtecxb997-jjzlcWHFb9pRLisYluEZ-au4j7V-dr3tA4rTl6bd7_Gjdhc07XP1tIhWNDbV_N55jzqwE1VndzYhH4IBMOm1i/s2172/Dip1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1206" data-original-width="2172" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiqpQNx3sRuaG_L-9gf62qvhYlAZ8VktQ5PRVLaV8Qs0WopsOt2RUoJpcb0awtS5PmqOQ1Xt46aB-hgOryzXfACKfbRmtecxb997-jjzlcWHFb9pRLisYluEZ-au4j7V-dr3tA4rTl6bd7_Gjdhc07XP1tIhWNDbV_N55jzqwE1VndzYhH4IBMOm1i/w400-h223/Dip1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The corner of Madison and Pulaski, March 5, 2023<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div><b><br /><a href="https://jamesiska.blogspot.com/2018/07/my-cousin-bob.html" target="_blank">My late cousin Bob Hoggatt</a> </b>used to refer to the West Side Irish of Chicago as
"lace curtain Irish". Look it up if you don't know the term. One day I asked him how then he would characterize the
South Side Irish, such as himself. His answer, typical for him was
hilariously self-deprecating but, uncharacteristically crude.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'll just leave it to you to imagine what he said. </div><div><br /></div><div>Driving
west on Washington Boulevard past Sacramento, Bob's assessment of the
West Side rings true today as the magnificent gold dome of the
<b>Garfield Park</b> Fieldhouse comes into view as you pass the ornate facades of the elegant late nineteenth and
early twentieth century houses and two flats, those that survived decades of turmoil and
neglect on the West Side.</div><div><br /></div><div>The fortunes of the
neighborhood around that park first took off after the construction of
two elevated lines in the 1890s. Madison Street, between the two lines, became the main
drag after the L tracks cast a permanent shadow over Lake Street, the
previous main thoroughfare. </div><div><br /></div><div>Just west of the
park, the intersection of Madison and Crawford, later named Pulaski Road,
was the heart of one of many neighborhood "downtowns" that
sprung up throughout Chicago at that time. So large and
successful was the Madison/Pulaski Shopping District, that it served as
the commercial, entertainment and business center for the entire West
Side throughout the first half of the twentieth century and beyond.</div><div><br /></div><div>But it was the twenties when the area
really boomed, seeing the construction of grand hotels, department
stores, and two movie palaces, the <b>Paradise </b>and the <b>Marbro</b>, both of
whom rivaled the Chicago Theater in the Loop in opulence and size.
Perhaps the most conspicuous symbol of the success of the area was the
construction of the Midwest Athletic Club which, when it was built, was the
tallest building between the Loop and Des Moines, Iowa. The building
still stands, you can see it in the background of the photograph
above. </div><div><br /></div><div>The boom ended as it did everywhere,
during the Great Depression. But the neighborhood kept plugging along
mostly intact through the difficult thirties and forties, with the
exception of the Athletic Club whose building became a hotel. Many of the "lace curtain" residents left for lacier dwellings
to the west. They were replaced by new residents, many of whom were immigrants from South, Central and Eastern Europe and their offspring. The community then took on a more working class feel. </div><div><br /></div><div>That
is illustrated by the construction of a <b>Goldblatts </b>Department
store in the shopping district in 1951. Goldblatts for decades had been
recognized as the "workingman's Marshall Fields", whose stores were
always situated inside architecturally impressive buildings, despite the
discount prices they offered inside. </div><div><br /></div><div>It was
the construction of one of their stores or their chief competitor
Wieboldts, sometimes both, that set into motion the
development of the commercial centers around them. </div><div> </div><div>Not so at Madison and Pulaski where Goldblatts was bringing up the rear. </div><div><br /></div><div>Here
is a photograph of the grand opening of the store on the SE corner of
Madison and Pulaski featuring its bold Mid-Century-Modern entrance in
April of 1951.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEEqIUWu0L5fI9wjYo5u-9JsD1liZ9_VcaUYlFXRo7JmJD6mxtYvdQ3KG2wUHlrcSPyo6L5eMThKtAQ_7aw9fM-vRJLmbhGyQVj9EZ67jHpQGMn8NJTmWgAhCrMGUDnng-qUS2-x3IFknu0krV0ID5yR9ipdepLFYNpeLJ07VPLLP9y-LvxI9Jb6ds/s600/Goldblatts.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEEqIUWu0L5fI9wjYo5u-9JsD1liZ9_VcaUYlFXRo7JmJD6mxtYvdQ3KG2wUHlrcSPyo6L5eMThKtAQ_7aw9fM-vRJLmbhGyQVj9EZ67jHpQGMn8NJTmWgAhCrMGUDnng-qUS2-x3IFknu0krV0ID5yR9ipdepLFYNpeLJ07VPLLP9y-LvxI9Jb6ds/s320/Goldblatts.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div>The same building, greatly altered, can be seen on the right in the contemporary color photograph above.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm
sure the store's appearance in the district made many of the remaining lace-curtain types who like my mother would have never set foot in
a Goldblatts, throw up their hands and say: "well there goes the
neighborhood!" </div><div><br /></div><div>But the riches-to-rags
story of the community would come a decade and a half later. It's sadly a familiar theme in Chicago, and many similar cities around the country.</div><div> </div><div>It begins with a rumor, usually propagated by phone calls, often in the middle of the night. "The
neighborhood is changing..." says the voice on the line, "and it's time to get out or else". It usually took only a few bites before panic set in and pretty soon practically everyone on the block was packing their bags and heading out. What they meant by "changing" as you may be able to guess if you've been around these parts long enough, was that black people were starting to move in. <br /></div></blockquote><blockquote><div>Now in a just and perfect world, nobody would bat an eye over something like that. After all, in a big city like Chicago, neighborhoods change all the time. As we just saw, West Garfield Park had already gone from lace curtains to vinyl window shades. But that change took place over a couple generations and was the result of upward mobility of families, both those leaving, and the new arrivals. In other words, they moved on their own terms. This was different. </div></blockquote><blockquote><div>Black people immigrated to Chicago for the same reason as members of other ethnic/racial groups before and after them including my father. In a word, that reason was opportunity. Most of the black people who came to Chicago in the first half of the twentieth century (commonly referred to as "The Great Migration"), came from the rural American South, especially the Mississippi Delta. hoping to leave behind poverty, the injustice of institutional racism, the brutal share-cropper system, and perpetual second-class citizenship. The rapidly growing industries of Chicago provided the opportunity of work, a steady paycheck, and the hope for a better life. </div></blockquote><blockquote><div>Chicago was never a particularly welcoming place for new groups of arrivals. The Irish, the Germans, the Bohemians, the Poles, the Jews, the Italians, the Chinese, and many other groups, all faced discrimination and hatred when they came here en masse. Quite often the worst abusers were members of the group who had just proceeded them. But the sum of all that hatred directed at those groups would not add up to a fraction of what was directed at the black people of Chicago. The tragic story of Chicago, the Segregated City, is based upon the fact that when black people moved into a neighborhood, white people almost invariably left, quick as their legs could carry them. </div></blockquote><blockquote><div>For many, the reasons for "white flight" are simple. If you ask one group, they might say it was about personal safety and property value. Ask another group and they'd say it was flat out racism. They're both right to an extent but the story is much more complicated than that. There were bad actors to be sure, plenty of them. Add to that, bad public policy, bad life choices, bad business decisions, bad landlords, bad faith, bad blood, bad parenting, bad luck, bad logic, bad manners, bad timing, bad choices, bad this, bad that, and a whole lot of good people, black and white, caught in the middle. </div></blockquote><blockquote><div>Those middle-of-the-night phone calls were not idle threats. </div></blockquote><blockquote><div>The people on the receiving end probably didn't know anything about the city's long-standing discriminatory housing covenants that determined where black people could live and where they couldn't, forcing people into over-crowded, dehumanizing slums. </div></blockquote><blockquote><div> They more than likely didn't know about the disinvestment caused by federal government maps of neighborhoods which lending institutions used to color code communities depending on their viability. The neighborhoods with red lines drawn around them, </div>hence the term "redlining", were almost always in the city, consisted of older housing stock and more often than not, were (or were about to be) inhabited by black people. These neighborhoods were deemed too risky to lend money to. Consequently, the communities lacked the funding from banks necessary for home improvement, new development, and any hope to keep them alive and vibrant. </blockquote><blockquote><div>It's also unlikely they knew about the true motives of those blockbusting callers, <span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b><a href="https://www.npr.org/local/309/2019/05/30/728122642/contract-buying-robbed-black-families-in-chicago-of-billions" target="_blank">contract sellers</a></b></span> who bought up property at bargain basement prices then turned it around overnight, well above market value and financing it themselves while charging exorbitant interest rates. These people made a killing by preying off the fears and prejudices of the white people they bought the property from, and the lack of other options for the black people to whom they sold the property. <br /></div></blockquote><blockquote><div>Nor did the white folks understand many other systematic, pernicious discriminatory practices that all but guaranteed segregation in the city and second-class status to people of color.</div></blockquote><blockquote><div>What they did know was what they could see with their own eyes: once thriving neighborhoods deteriorating rapidly not long after black people moved into them. <div><br /></div><div>The people in West Garfield Park didn't have to look far. In 1951 when
Goldblatts opened at Madison and Pulaski, there were virtually no black
people living in the community. That same year in neighboring North Lawndale to the south, the population was 13 percent black. Ten years later that number was 91 percent. It wasn't merely the
complexion of the community that changed in a decade, the new arrivals found massive unemployment as the moribund industries in the area were not hiring, at least not to them, and despite the population of the community at an all-time high, due to redlining, no new housing to speak of was constructed, which resulted in the rapid deterioration of the existing housing stock and the infrastructure of the community.<br /></div></div></blockquote><blockquote><div><div>By 1960, the black population of West Garfield Park was 16 percent. Given the rapid change next door, there was legitimate concern and tension in the neighborhood, especially following
a riot in 1965 sparked by the death of a young black woman who was
accidentally struck by a Chicago Fire Department vehicle. <br /></div></div></blockquote><blockquote><div><div><div>After that incident, virtually the entire West Side of Chicago became a tinder box ready to explode.</div><div><br /></div><div>It wasn't a match that set the tinder box ablaze, but a bullet. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Martin
Luther King Jr.</b> was no stranger to the West Side. As part of his
"Campaign to End Slums", in 1966, King and his family <a href="http://jamesiska.blogspot.com/2016/01/1550-s-hamlin.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b>moved into an apartment at 1550 South Hamli</b></span><b>n</b></a> in North Lawndale. It was during that time when Dr. King led marches for open-housing in the then all-white neighborhoods of Gage
Park and Marquette Park on the South Side and also in the suburb of Cicero. </div><div><br /></div><div>Needless to say, Dr. King was not warmly welcomed
as the beloved figure of peace and love who just wanted all of us to get
along, as he is pictured today among members of the white ultra-right. I
vividly remember the parents of my best friend at the time rhetorically
asking: "Why doesn't that colored guy just mind his own business?" Those were some of the milder comments about him, It
was on August 5th of that year in Marquette Park, where King was hit in
the head with a rock, inspiring this statement: </div><blockquote><i>I’ve been in many demonstrations all across the South, but I can say
that I have never seen, even in Mississippi and Alabama, mobs as hostile
and as hate-filled as I’m seeing in Chicago.</i></blockquote><p>Not a quote seen too often in collections of quotes about our great city. </p><p>On
the evening of April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated in
Memphis, and cities all over the country went up in flames. While there
were flareups in the more established black communities of the South
Side, cooler heads there prevailed and community leaders, including gang
leaders, intervened to help control the damage.</p><p>But not on the West Side. </p></div></div></blockquote><blockquote><div><div><p><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b><a href="https://youtu.be/-kyNvEsQxns" target="_blank">Here is a link to a short film</a></b></span> produced by the CFD (obviously told from their perspective) on Chicago's West Side riots after Dr. King's assassination.</p></div></div></blockquote><blockquote><div><div><p>It made so little sense to so many, especially white people, why people rioted, looted and set fire to their own community, leaving thousands homeless, vital businesses destroyed and the neighborhood in a state of ruin from which it has yet to recover, more than fifty years later.<br /></p></div></div></blockquote><blockquote><div><div><p>I had an epiphany of sorts several years ago when I read in its entirety, Dr. King's most famous speech. Here I'm quoting myself: </p><blockquote>As I became re-acquainted last week with the "I Have a Dream" speech,
one line particularly spoke out to me. Dr. King said early in the
speech:<br />
<br />
"<span style="font-style: italic;">One hundred years later...</span>", (after the Emancipation Proclamation), "<span style="font-style: italic;">...the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.</span>"<br />
<br />
Perhaps for the first time in my life I put myself in the shoes of the
people in the African American community who rioted in cities all over
the country after King's murder. No longer do I feel that the violence,
regrettable as it was, was not justified. With the image of people
exiled in their own land in mind, I could understand why folks threw up
their hands believing that this country had nothing left to offer (them).
Martin Luther King preached non-violence in order to bring about
justice for his people, and where did it get him? Dr. King did nothing
more than confirm the rights guaranteed in our constitution. The only
difference was he added the "for all" part that American children
recite in school every day, preceded by the words liberty and justice.
For that he went to jail in Birmingham. For that bricks were thrown at
him in Chicago. For that he was killed in Memphis.</blockquote><p></p></div></div></blockquote><blockquote><div>While many white folks claimed Dr. King who advocated non-violence would have been appalled by the response to his murder, King shortly before his death prophetically revealed the truth of the matter: <i><blockquote>Urban riots must now be recognized as durable social phenomena...
They may be deplored, but they are there and should be understood. Urban
riots are a special form of violence. They are not insurrections. The
rioters are not seeking to seize territory or to attain control of
institutions. They are mainly intended to shock the white community.
They are a distorted form of social protest. The looting which is their
principal feature serves many functions. It enables the most enraged and
deprived Negro to take hold of consumer goods with the ease the white
man does by using his purse. Often the Negro does not even want what he
takes; he wants the experience of taking.</blockquote></i></div></blockquote><blockquote><div>During the sixties, roughly 40,000 white people left West Garfield Park, replaced by the same number of black people. With its commercial heart all but destroyed by the riots after the assassination of Dr. King, black people who had the means to do so, left the neighborhood as well. Between 1970 and 1980, the total population of West Garfield Park diminished by thirty percent. In the following decade, it diminished by nearly another thirty percent. In the latest census, the population is nearly thirty percent less than that. </div></blockquote><blockquote><div><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b><a href="https://www.wbez.org/stories/more-than-50-years-after-mlk-riots-same-section-of-chicagos-west-side-reeling-from-destruction/8f666e73-eca2-412b-ae98-eede314a5bad." target="_blank">Here is a link to an article from WBEZ Chicago</a></b></span> which describes the latest newsworthy event that took place around Madison and Pulaski, and it wasn't good. Once again, the neighborhood experienced riots and looting, this time after the death of <b>George Floyd</b> in Minneapolis in 2020. The article begins by quoting <b>Thomas Morris</b>, a lifelong resident of West Garfield Park who participated in the 1968 riots. Like Dr. King, Morris was measured in his response, viewing both sides of the issue: </div><blockquote><i>I’m looking at the consequences of being stupid. You torched stuff in the community that you [need]. Now, you got no place to buy food, medical [supplies], because you destroyed it... And you dishonored the man who lost his life.</i> </blockquote></blockquote><blockquote><blockquote>On the other hand... </blockquote></blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><i>It seems like for us to get any attention, we have to do wrong...it's just systemic racism in America...and this has to change and we have to do things to be fair.</i></blockquote>The article points out that Morris is "frustrated and angry with the damage" but also angry that people in 2020 still have to:<blockquote><i>...protest and fight for the same things (we) fought for in the 60s... how the hell can the racism in the 60s be allowed today in the 2000s?</i></blockquote></blockquote><div>I'll let these words of Mr. Morris that cut to the chase better than my poor words ever could, close this post. </div><div><br /></div>This was long and as I stated at the top, it's only part one.<div>As I said, this is a complicated issue. </div><div><br /></div><div>Until next time...</div>James Iskahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219990004487304003noreply@blogger.com0