The Psychology and Politics of Unfriending

As of 7:00 a.m. today, I have precisely 701 Facebook “friends.” For reasons largely unknown (perhaps the relative boredom of isolation), I decided to cull through this list and see how many of the 701 I could identify. I’m happy to report that easily more than half were known to me; a mixture of family, old school-mates, fellow “Hollywood Brats,” political people, students and colleagues from various universities, former synagogue youth group/summer camp chaverim (Hebrew for “friends”) and former and current congregants. Then too, there were literally dozens whom I had virtually no idea of who, how and why they were on my friends list, and more than a handful of people who were no longer alive . . . although their Facebook pages were still “idly active.” All this took somewhat a bit less than 2 hours. 

After (sadly) deleting the deceased, I started looking over the pages of people I couldn’t for the  life of me identify.  That’s when it dawned on me that if I checked  out who was on their friends list that might explain our “relationship.”  In many cases, it was but a single  individual we had  in common.  One such person - a writer who had one of my politics students on her list - had just posed a message stating, in part, “It's after midnight Sunday night, and I can't begin to think about getting to sleep. Listening to the things Trump said today has made that impossible. I know I have a number of "friends" on FB who support this man, and I have come to the end of my tolerance for you. Tonight I am unfriending all of you—and I don't care if we have been friends for decades or if we are related by marriage or blood. . . .You are no longer my friends or relations, on Facebook or in real life. Don't contact me to defend your position; I never, ever want to hear from you again. Goodbye.”

To be perfectly honest (unlike the POTUS), I’m not sure whether I agree or disagree with this Facebook friend. To unfriend or not to unfriend: that is the question. On the one hand, I really, truly hate the nausea and bile that well up every time I read the words of praise these otherwise intelligent, successful people heap upon their miscreant-in-chief.  But who ever said that just because a person is successful it follows that they understand thing one about civics, civility or sanity? Ridding oneself of the bile is as simple as pressing the “unfriend” button . . . one, two, three and voila!  They and their noxious nostrums have evaporated into the political putrescence. But it comes at a price: knowing that they are forever gone from my life.   On the other hand, there is a part of me that truly wants to believe that to unfriend those who are intolerably smug and small is to make me far less a mentsch - a decent human being - than I could cope with. But then I remember that quote from Winston Churchill: “Never give in, never, never, never–never, in nothing, great or small, large or petty–never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.”

This week’s essay is the 874th I’ve posted since February 2005 back when this blog was called “Beating the Bushes.". In all these years, I’ve received thousands upon thousands of comments . . . most praiseworthy, many thoughtful, and more than I care to remember nasty and vile. Since many are sent to one of my many email addresses, I have the ability to pre-screen and send the writers of vile drek directly into the various spam files. I must admit that every once in a while I do read what these folks write. Some are so strident as to be a stitch; others are threatening, horribly misspelled, and make me proud to have come from a bright, well-educated family. With Facebook it’s a bit different. If you want to keep the rest of your little world from seeing just how nuts and politically poisoned people can be, you first must unfriend them. But then I think: what do I care if the rest of my readers think they’re village idiots? That’s their - e.g. the village idiots - problem!

While I can certainly applaud my anonymous Facebook friend’s decision to unfriend all those who persist in being aggressively, aggravatingly pro-Trump – despite all the lies, the inability to accept the input of those far, far better versed than he, and that otherworldly egomania - I myself cannot push these folks overboard. Of course, I don’t have to read their screeds.    Sooner or later they will suffer loss, and may well come to grasp that there are more things under heaven and earth than can ever be blamed on Obama and Clinton, Pelosi, Biden, George Soros or even Dr. Fauci.

In the long run, unfriending those who annoyingly, flippantly oppose one’s political point of view and hate you for not loving Trump and all he stands for (and against) will, it seems to me, do next to nothing.  On the other hand, supporting those who agree can at least let you know that there are more sane people in the world than you ever dreamed of. Instead of grousing get cracking; there are candidates to support and elections to be won. There’s a country and a world to be saved . . .

“Never give in, never, never, never–never, in nothing, great or small, large or petty–never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.”

219 days until the next election.

Be well, read books and watch movies, be extra nice to those you are quarantined with and WASH YOUR HANDS!

Copyright ©, 2020, Kurt F. Stone

Who in the Hell Are the "They" That "Say?"

Over the past quarter century I’ve spent the lion’s share of my most rewarding time not as a rabbi, nor as a professor or a writer in the fields of politics, history, and old Hollywood. Rather, my most productive and rewarding time has been the tens of dozens of hours I spent each month as a member of an ‘Institutional Review Board'; a medical panel in which physicians, pharmacologists, geneticists, bio-engineers, and medically knowledgeable lay people delve into the newest, most up-to-date clinical trials (medical research) with an eye towards protecting the rights of men, women and children who might eventually volunteer to participate in the creation of the next generation of drugs, surgical procedures and medical devices. Believe me: of all the things I do in a given day, week, month or year, being part of a world-class Institutional Review Board is, hands-down, the most satisfying of all. And now, at the very beginning of the Covin-19 Virus pandemic, we are sitting in the very first row, privy to what’s going on before just about anybody else.

Participating in twice-weekly teleconferences with a handful of galaxy-class physicians and medical experts - all backed by several dozen off-screen staff experts, is bound to give a lay person like myself a feeling of utter humility.  And now, having been assigned oversight of nearly all the Covin-19 Virus clinical trials we recognize just how little we know.  It never ceases to amaze me how much my colleagues know and  understand the boundaries of their brilliance; a neurosurgeon, gastropod, OB-GYN, rheumatologist, or cardiologist, to name but 5, won’t deign to answer questions about the efficacy of a particular Covin-19 vaccine . . . and  will instead defer to any and all infectious disease specialists on the board.  “That’s not my specialty,” we will hear time and again.  Such utter humility!  Oh yes, they will weigh in on the latest possible medications -  chloroquine phosphate and hydroxychloroquine - if they happen to specialize in rheumatology - for they are accustomed to prescribing it for people suffering from such immunosuppressive conditions as Lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.  But aside from that, they prefer to sit back and listen to those who truly know what they are talking about.

(n.b.; ever since the POTUS has started talking about what “they say” as to the possible efficacy of using chloroquine, it has become increasingly difficult for those suffering from Lupus or Rheumatoid Arthritis to get the medications they truly need for their conditions.  And all the POTUS has to go on is the “they say”  “proof” about its efficacy vis-à-vis Covin-19.  Without question, the president’s embrace of unproven drugs to treat Coronavirus absolutely defies science. I for one cannot imagine what Dr. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases must feel like at the end of a Trump press conference, for virtually everything his boss says goes against both science and medicine. The good doctor no doubt deserves an Oscar for keeping a straight face while listening to POTUS endlessly and inanely bloviate about things he knows not . . . which covers a vast sea of topics and issues. We keep hearing the phrase “. . . they say that . . .” which means next to nothing.  I know that when I speak to people who are aware of my work as a medical ethicist I keep hearing “They say that,” to which I always begin my answer with “ . . . and who in the Hell are ‘they’ who ‘say’”?  Frequently I am told that “medical” and “ethics” are an oxymoron.  Does that mean that whatsoever the POTUS says is the G-d’s honest truth?  Well, I’m here to tell you that next to nothing coming from his lips is the truth, and that “medical” and “ethics” are, for the most part, as congruent as peanut butter and jelly. 

At this point in time, things are pretty damned bleak.  The further we go, the more Donald Trump seems like the reincarnation of Robert Penn Warren’s fictional Willie Stark (All the King’s Men), a mercurial know-nothing who goes from fiery man-of-the-people populist to autocrat within a single term as governor of an unidentified fictional state.  In Penn Warren’s Pulitzer-Prize (and Academy Award-winning) novel and film, Willie becomes the hero of the common-folk,  one who is incapable of doing anything wrong.  While convincing the little people that he is their hero, he is really doing whatever he can to feather his own nest.  But in an incredibly meaningful epigraph to the 1946 novel, Penn Warren quotes Dante’s The Divine Comedy (Purgatoria, canto III) “Mentre che la speranza ha fior del verde. . . loosely translated “. . . as long as hope has any touch of green . . .” What this epigraph means in terms of Dante’s voyage through Hell, All the King’s Men and the vile Willie Stark is several steps above my pay grade.  What it may mean in terms of the Covid-19 pandemic, economic crisis and the “They say” syndrome may be a bit more understandable.

“ . . . as long as hope has any touch of green . . . “ may, in the long run, refer to the acts humanity, compassion, and thoughtfulness we see and experience in the midst of this epochal crisis . . . of which there are many. While the media (both mainstream and downstream) endlessly report on the inability of the White House, the Feds and our so-called national leaders to put science, medicine and other forms of expertise ahead of the politics of blame, cupidity and outright criminality, there are so many everyday people, institutions, businesses, philanthropists and local leaders whose deeds are being lost in the shuffle. Where many look at the Covid-19 cataclysm as a means for making a fortune - whether political or economic - for feeding one’s ego or feathering one’s nest, there are others who - like doctors, nurses, emergency medical technicians, home healthcare workers, grocery store employees, postal workers and spiritual leaders - who are putting their lives on the line in order to provide that “touch of green” we so desperately need.  The other day, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo held a press conference, announcing that he was officially shutting New York State down in order to safeguard the healthcare system from being overrun and overloaded.  Unlike the POTUS, who held his daily “presser” just as the governor’s was ending, Cuomo offered people of his state - and across the country - that touch of green  - that someone is in charge . . . even if the news is bad and getting worse. And Cuomo is not alone; all across the country there are governors and mayors, city council members and teachers who are providing moral and civic uplift by acting with the calm reassuring strength of leadership.

He ended his nearly 1 hour press conference by saying: “And my last point is: practice humanity. We don't talk about practicing humanity, but now if ever there was a time to practice humanity that time is now. Show some kindness, show some compassion to people, show some gentility even as a New Yorker. Yes, we can be tough. Yes, this is a dense environment. It can be a difficult environment. But it can also be the most supportive, courageous community that you have ever seen.”  Then the governor stood up and said “I’m gonna go to work.”  Nowhere in his speech did he take credit, claim knowledge he does not possess, or badmouth reporters whose questions he did not particularly like.  In other words, he spoke as a leader should.

“They” say this and that about Covid-19.  Please, don’t pass on “facts” that come from “factless” amateurs.  We will, together, pull through this catastrophe if only we pay attention to those who have dedicated their professional lives to knowing as much as there is to know about things most know nothing about . . . and then taking them seriously.  For these are the only “They” who have the ability to “say.”

They are the “touch of green” who will ultimately provide both hope and health.

Copyright, © 2020 Kurt F. Stone

ByeDon

Prior to last Tuesday’s “Who woulda thunk it?” turnaround for former Vice President Joe Biden, his presidential campaign was on life support. He woke up that morning facing an all but certain end to a national political career which had begun way back in 1972 when he defeated two-term Senator J. Caleb Boggs (R-DE) by the razor-thin margin of 3,162 votes. Within 24 hours, Biden - whose campaign had next to no money, little organizational depth and virtually no “ground game,” had inexplicably won 10 of 14 primaries and was, like Bill Clinton in 1992, the “Comeback Kid.” Actually, comebacks are and were nothing new to Joseph Biden. With less than 3 months to go in his initial, 1972 senate race, Biden was trailing the well-funded Boggs by nearly 30 points. But Biden’s energy level, his attractive young family (2 of whom would tragically die in a traffic accident shortly before he could take the oath of office), and his ability to connect with voters' emotions, gave the 29-year old the victory. Thus, was a historic political career born.

Fast forward to the beginning of last week’s “Super Tuesday.”  Biden, who had initially been the front-runner saw the field expand and expand until the point where he had sunk down to the level of “also-ran.”  Lacking the fund-raising machine of a Sanders or Warren, the youth  and energy of a  Buttigieg, the rhetorical muscle of a Harris, Booker or Klobuchar, or personal wealth of a Steyer or  Bloomberg, Biden came across as an old, creaky member of the Democratic establishment. He began sinking in the polls.  Increasingly, it looked like the Democratic nomination would belong to anyone but Biden.

And then came South Carolina . . . the state Biden and his threadbare staff knew stood between resuscitation and retirement.  Enter Representative Jim Clyburn, the House Majority Whip and without question, the most powerful, most universally respected  politician in the Palmetto State.  Just days before Super Tuesday, Clyburn endorsed Vice President Biden; Senator Sanders never called nor sought Clyburn’s imprimatur.  Biden went on to manhandle the Vermont Senator in South Carolina with its huge African American voting bloc.  This victory provided the Biden campaign with all the political muscle it needed to resurrect his campaign and go back to the top of the presidential heap.

How did this happen?  Was it something the former Vice President did right or something the Vermont Senator did wrong?  Actually, it was a bit of both. Looking at Sanders’ exit polling one notes that he received far fewer votes in 2020 than he did in 2016.  Out of the 14 states in play on Super Tuesday, he only received more votes in 2 states this time around than in 2016: Texas and Tennessee. (He even received 35,000 fewer votes in his home state. Most notably, he had far fewer young voters casting ballots for him this time around. It would seem that the fatal flaw in the Sanders campaign was that they were unable to expand their base; his “revolution” had fizzled. His campaign staff long believed that all they needed to do was capture 30% of the delegates going into the convention, then demand the nomination. Thus, they built a campaign that demanded little of Sanders: no change in message, no effort to broaden the coalition. Like his utter lack of interest in legislating, his campaign had zero interest in building actual majority support. 

In the case of Joe Biden, his best selling point was the man currently occupying the Oval Office. Trump’s utter lack of civility, truthfulness, worldly knowledge and programmatic chops - except undoing anything and everything enacted by the Obama administration - made Democrats think long and hard about who stood the best chance of defeating the man in the MAGA cap - as well as holding the House, recapturing the Senate and giving an able assist to down-ballot Democrats around the country. Add to this the provable fact that the former Vice President has a long history of enacting legislation, as well as possessing a dignified mien and knowing far more about the world and foreign affairs than ‘45 (and comes equipped with a Rolodex which is second-to-none) and one can easily understand why all the political stars are quickly aligning. 

It has long been well known that Joe Biden is the one challenger who gives ‘45 the greatest number of sleepless nights.  Were Sanders to become the Democratic candidate, all Boss Tweet would have to do is say the words “Socialist” and “Communist” a couple of hundred thousand times until his base would man the barricades.  By terms of this scenario, Bernie Sanders could easily become the 21st century equivalent of George McGovern.  With Biden however, the president would find his campaign strategy in need of a major retrofit. Consider the following:

• Were Trump to bring up the issue of Hunter Biden (which had so much to do with ‘45’s impeachment), all the former Veep would have to do is utter the names “Eric Trump,” “Donald Trump Jr.,” and “Ivanka, and Jared Kushner.” He could then ask how Hunter’s $50,000 a month from Burisma compares with Ivanka and Jared’s reported $135 million in 2019 alone?  Can you spell “hyper- nepotism?”

• Were the president to revisit a September 1987 Biden speech in which the then-Senator (and potential presidential candidate) was discovered to have lifted phrases and mannerisms from a fiery British Labour Party politician (Neil Kinnock) at the end of a debate, all the Vice President would have to do is begin counting off the Trump lies . . . beginning with his first day in office. Trump would likely counter with the charge that he never lies . . . it’s all the fault of “fake news.”

• At some point, POTUS will no doubt bring up the fact that VOTUS originally supported the war in Iraq, while businessman Trump was always steadfastly against it. This is a flat-out lie; as early as September 11, 2002 (six months before the American invasion of Iraq), Trump told radio shock jock Howard Stern “Yeah, I guess I would favor it [invading Iraq] . . .  You know, I wish the first time it was done correctly.

• Were Trump to attack Biden for being too old and use as proof some of his rhetorical gaffs, the Veep would have the ability to run more than 24-hours worth of YouTube captures of ‘45’s misstatements, mispronunciations and overly repetitive redundancies.

• Look for ‘45 to tie Joe Biden ever tighter to Barack Obama over such issues as NAFTA, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), being anti-Israel, supporting the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (“JCPOA” - the Iranian nuclear deal) and being a supporter of the Paris Agreement (which 196 countries and the European Union have signed). In just about every case, ‘45 has argued that Biden’s positions indicate beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is a thoroughgoing socialist and cares not a whit about jobs for Americans. Unbeknownst to Boss Tweet, being tied to Obama is actually a pretty good thing: the 44th POTUS has ranked as the most admired man in America for the past 12 years . . .

For most of his presidency, Donald Trump has referred to V.P, Biden as “Sleepy Joe.” Events of the past two weeks show that Biden is anything but fatigued. He is gaining strength, endorsements and popularity. By the same token, the POTUS is likely beginning to be afflicted by nausea, insomnia and what might be diagnosed as “Nero-itis” . . . the urge to fiddle while his kingdom burns. Let him continue with his “Make America Great Again slogan, while Joe Biden and his campaign give serious consideration to making their’s

                                                                                                 BYEDON 2020

240 days let until the presidential election.

Be careful, be healthy and WASH YOUR HANDS!

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

Can a Pandemic Bring Down a Presidency?

Seemingly, there is an axiom within the pages of human history that any major catastrophic event must be birthed along with its own malevolent twin: a conspiracy theory. The truth of this axiom can be seen most clearly when it comes to pandemics. Consider, if you will, the “Black Death” (bubonic plague) which killed nearly 20 million people - more than one-third of Europe - in the mid 14th century. The disease was terrifyingly contagious; the Italian Renaissance poet Giovanni Boccaccio (best known for The Decameron) wrote that “the mere touching of the clothes appeared to itself to communicate the malady to the toucher.” The disease was also terrifyingly efficient: People who were perfectly healthy when they went to bed at night could be dead by morning.

Understandably, religious fervor, fanaticism and conspiracy theories bloomed and abounded in the wake of the Black Death. One of the best-known of the latter involved the scapegoating of the Jews of Europe, who it was said caused the Black Death by poisoning the water wells (which they confessed to under torture). While it is true that Jews apparently did suffer far fewer deaths, it is likely due to the fact that Jewish villages and communities had their own water wells and practiced better hygiene than their non-Jewish neighbors. (Jewish law commanded Jews to wash their hands before eating; Jewish custom had Jews bathe at least once a week.) Nonetheless, this conspiracy theory - this malevolent twin - led to massacres and cremations of Jews in Flanders, Aragon, Mainz, Cologne and Strasbourg.

Then there was the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-1919 - the tail end of what was then called “The Great War” (WWI) and the first year after the Armistice. This contagion infected more than a third of the world’s population and killed more than 100 million people. r

Rumour and misinformation were rife. The pathogen responsible for Spanish flu remained a mystery and, with little helpful guidance available from the medical community, the world was ripe for the proliferation of ‘fake news.” Conspiracy theories abounded and blamed the pandemic on the war – often, unsurprisingly, on the enemy. In Rio de Janeiro, one newspaper reported that the pandemic had been purposely spread around the world by German submarines, with innocent people “falling victim to the Germans’ treacherous bacteriological creation”. Artist Jordan Baseman, in researching the pandemic for a piece which ran on “Radio Influenza" found “The flu was blamed on foreigners (anywhere in the world, not just the UK), on Jewish people, on dancing, on jazz music, on the bombing of the soil as a result of the war, and on pretty much anything else you could think of.”

Although we have yet to come across anyone charging “enemies of the people” with purposely cooking up COVID-19 for god-knows-what mendacious purposes, we are witnessing enough conspiracy-mongering, dystopian theorizing, and outright lunacy to make invalids of us all. ‘45’s response to the approaching pandemic has been medically infantile, intellectually sterile and politically puerile. His main concern has been not to reassure both America and the world that we are doing everything within our scientific power to meet this problem head-on, but to kvetch and complain that his enemies - Democrats and the “lame-stream” media come to mind - are doing everything in their power to make sure he is not reelected. He is blaming us/them of endlessly reporting on the progress of COVID-19 in order to cause the thunderous collapse of the Dow Jones, which in turn will no doubt make his chances of reelection more dubious. As always, he is looking at the world through the eyes of a deranged narcissist.

Since his inauguration, D. Trump has cut funding for both the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and National Institutes for Health (NIH), as well as getting rid of virtually any and everyone who has experience dealing with pandemics. This should come as no surprise: no president has ever been so anti-science, while proclaiming himself to be the most scientifically knowledgeable of all presidents. While millions wonder whether it is best to wear surgical masks, the POTUS wears his mask over his eyes.

At his press conference last week, the president held forth on the difference between flu and COVID-19, predicted that with the coming spring and summer the higher temperatures would destroy the virus, and slammed the top-ranking Senate Democrat who said ‘45’s $2.5 billion request from Congress to fight the deadly virus is insufficient. In a later tweet, the POTUS wrote "Cryin' Chuck Schumer is complaining, for publicity purposes only, that I should be asking for more money than $2.5 Billion to prepare for Coronavirus. If I asked for more he would say it is too much. He didn’t like my early travel closings. I was right. He is incompetent!," Trump added.

As the impact of coronavirus continues to be reported, concerns are arising that it is driving xenophobic attacks toward people of Asian descent. Conspiracy theories and agenda-driven narratives are popping  up all over the internet and throughout right-wing media, adding more panic and confusion to an already chaotic situation. The virus has also triggered anti-Semitic sentiments, medical and scientific disinformation, and fear mongering from the religious right about the end of the world. The  president and his allies in the media have also absurdly argued that Democrats and the media are politicizing coronavirus for their own gain to make him look bad and cause panic in the stock market.

Right-wing media outlets and online accounts are spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories which could have deadly consequences. Many in the right-wing media are placing blame squarely on the back of the Chinese government: On the same day as ‘45’s press conference, Fox Business host Lou Dobbs claimed, “we don’t know yet whether or not this [e.g. COVID-19] was an engineered virus” and said that there is “a research lab some 300 yards from the epicenter of this outbreak.”  Rush Limbaugh falsely claimed that the virus is "an effort to get Trump" and was no worse than "the common cold." On Friday, Vice President Mike Pence (who the POTUS appointed to be his eyes and ears vis-a-vis COVID-19) stopped by Limbaugh's studio to talk about the response. Limbaugh did not bring up his conspiracy theories, though the VEEP did promise that the virus would not spread within the country (less than 24 hours later reports would indicate that the virus spread on the west coast and that an American in Washington State had died). [n.b. Since I started writing this essay less than 24 hours ago, a second death has been reported in Washington State.]

As COVID-19 continues to spread - which inevitably and regrettably it shall - the White House. its residential householder and the political party he leads, are going to feel and hear more and more disapprobation from the American public. They will hear the complaints of people who are feeling unwell yet cannot take a day or two off work or school; they are going to be hounded by all the men, women and children who cannot afford to get medical checkups either because they have no health insurance or when they go to the local E.R. find they can’t even find a parking space . . . let alone an available M.D., P.A., R.N. or N.P. They are going to be feeling the wrath of millions upon millions of wage earners whose I.R.A.s are dwindling precipitously to near nothing; they are likely hear the increasing drumbeats of fear and perhaps finally come to realize that they haven’t the slightest idea what to do.

Can a pandemic bring down a presidency? I don’t know; my crystal ball has yet to come back from the dry cleaner. What I do know is that I would greatly prefer to live in a country whose president is sane enough to know what he does not know, and wise enough to seek the counsel of those who do.

A little bit of knowledge goes a long way.

Be well, and stay away from myths!

247 days until the presidential election.

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

Can Hate Ever Be Conquered?

April 12, 1945: Generals Eisenhower, Patton and Bradley at Ohrdruf

On April 4, 1945, soldiers of the 4th Armored Division entered and liberated Ohrdruf, a subcamp of the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp. What they discovered was far worse than anything from Dante’s Inferno: piles of bodies, some covered with lime, and others partially incinerated on pyres. The ghastly nature of their discovery led General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, to visit the camp on April 12, with Generals George S. Patton and Omar Bradley. After his visit, Eisenhower cabled General George C. Marshall, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington, describing his trip to Ohrdruf: the things I saw beggar description. … The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick ... . I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to “propaganda.” (Today, Eisenhower’s words are etched on a plaque which hands outside the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.)

Eisenhower also ordered every soldier who had a camera to snap as many photographs as possible, as a way to begin documenting the horror they found. Further, on April 19, 1945, Eisenhower again cabled General Marshall with a request to bring members of Congress and journalists to the newly liberated camps so that they could convey the horrible truth about Nazi atrocities to the American public. Within days, congressional representatives, senators and journalists began arriving to bear witness to Nazi crimes in the camps. The discovery of the Ohrdruf camp, and the subsequent liberation of  Dora-Mittelbau (April 11), Flossenbürg (April 23), Dachau (April 29), and Mauthausen (May 5) opened the eyes of many US soldiers and the American public to the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

Without question, the Holocaust was - and is - the most thoroughly documented act of mass murder - the product of irrational hatred - in all human history.  And yet, despite the tens of millions of photos and films, the hundreds of thousands of soldiers and survivors who provided eye-witness testimony and all the German citizens and soldiers that Eisenhower forced to see what had been done in their name - there are those who believe with all their hearts (and to this very day) that the Holocaust never happened . . . that it was all a heinous fabrication on the part of the very people who claimed that they were its victims.

Indeed, Anti-Semitism - the irrational hatred of Jews - seems to be of greater antiquity than the religion or people themselves. It has forced more than one wit to wonder what came first: Jews or Anti-Semites. There are times one satirically wonders if G-d, in Co’s (my pronoun which is gender infinite) divine wisdom had not created the Jews, then the devil would have in order to have an eternal object of hatred and obloquy. Certainly groundless hatred is as old as the world itself. Witness the Biblical enmity between Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, as well as Jacob and Esau. Over several millennia, these hatreds expanded to the point where any people or group who was seen as being different - possessing “otherness” - became the object of scorn and derision as well as the source and cause of whatever was wrong or incomprehensible. Got a plague spreading across your continent? Blame the Jews for poisoning all the water wells. Suffering from a devastating economic downturn? Blame and punish the immigrants for stealing jobs and creating crime, or what today we refer to as the LGBTQ community for forcing the hand of the Lord and inflicting us with Divine wrath because of their “immoral” lifestyle. Suffer a devastating surprise attack by foreign fanatics? Turn every member of that group - whether be members of a particular country, culture or religion - into a collective, conspiratorial force of ultimate evil.

Read between the lines; you get the point.

We all know that hate crimes, incidences of violence against Jews, Muslims, African Americans, Hispanics and members of the LGBTQ community are at an all-time high.  Groups which track these events and the groups behind them - such as the Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center - provide chilling statistical evidence of this rise.  It’s gotten to the point that just as soon as one act of lethal hate-provoked violence becomes front page, top-of-the-hour news, another comes along to replace it.  This past Wednesday, a lone gunman mowed down 9 people at 2 different shisha (hookah) bars in Hanau, Germany. The suspect and his mother were later found dead of gunshot wounds in his apartment. This is the 3rd mass killing in Germany so far this year. Attacks have likewise taken the lives of Jews, Muslim immigrants and members of the LGBTQ community in the United States, England, France, Italy and other countries since the beginning of 2020.

Responses to these murderous attacks include public vigils with plenty of prayers, placards and flowers, calls for new gun legislation (especially in the United States), finger-pointing . . . attempts at ascertaining just what or whom is most likely responsible for the startling upsurge in violence, hatred and intolerance. And while pointing a fist and finger at a president, prime minister, political party or economic inequality are all understandable, they are largely of the “full of sound and fury signifying nothing” variety. Attempting to assign blame - social networking sites and the “dark web,” too many guns which are too easily obtained, a serious lack of education, etc., does little more than permit people to vent, which is not altogether a bad thing,  However, to attempt to understand and ameliorate that which is inherently incomprehensible solves nothing. Trying to change the mind of a bigot, racist, homophobe, Islamophobe or Anti-Semite by providing facts, statistics or slices of history is next to useless. It is akin to banging one’s head against the wall which, so far as I know, produces little save concussions and cracked skulls.  The bigot, the racist, the homphobe and other such such cretinous blots on society all suffer from a disease called certitude, which as Mr. Justice Holmes noted long ago in a 1897 Harvard Law Review essay, “generally is illusion . . . is not certainty. We have [all] been cocksure of many things that never were . . .”  

Having expressed quite a bit of negativity, is there, in truth, anything which we - who are neither inherently bigoted, systemically violent nor willfully ignorant - can do to help stem the tide of hatred? Without slipping into the netherworld of idealistic innocence, there are a few suggestions to be made:

1. Always keep close at hand the names, phone numbers and email addresses of those organizations and/or individuals to whom we must report acts or threats of hatred. Shining a bright light upon the merchants of mendacity can have a sanitizing effect.

2. Be in constant contact with your elected officials . . . we must all be their eyes and ears.

3. Make sure to work and vote for those who share your worldview, your humanity and your outrage. Do not, under any circumstances decide to stay home and not vote because you don’t think it will make a difference.

4. Attend marches, vigils and meetings; if nothing else, to meet and get to know like-minded individuals.

5. Never give up.

When my sister Erica and I were toddlers, our Grannie Annie used to read us poems at bedtime.  One of the most memorable was Keep ‘a Going by the American poet Frank Lebby Stanton (1857-1927), which said in part:

If you strike a thorn or rose,
Keep a-goin'!
If it hails or if it snows,
Keep a-goin'!
'Taint no use to sit an' whine
When the fish ain't on your line;
Bait your hook an' keep a-tryin'--
Keep a-goin'!

So, is it possible for hatred to ever be conquered?  Don’t know for sure.  But one thing I do know was taught to us by our beloved grandma:

KEEP -A-GOIN’!

255 days until the Presidential election.

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

President's Day 2020

This is Presidents’ Day weekend.  Originally, it commemorated the birthday of George Washington. Washington's Birthday was first celebrated as a holiday in the District of Columbia in 1880. Five years later, It was made a federal holiday. The holiday was originally held on the anniversary of George Washington's birth, February 22. In 1971, this holiday was moved to the third Monday in February.  As the years have progressed, Abraham Lincoln, the nation’s 16th POTUS, has been added to the commemoration.  And  by extension, it has become a remembrance of all 45 of our Chief Executives . . . for better or for worse.

For many, President’s (or “Presidents’”) Day has become little more than a day off from school, bank closures, no mail delivery, and tons of Presidents’ Day Sales.  Commerce has largely overtaken celebration or commemoration.  I for one find the sales irrelevant; shopping is far, far down on my list of things to do in honor and memory of our leaders.  Taken as a group, the 45 men who have served are a fascinating mélange, ranging from breathtakingly brilliant and accomplished to dull-as-dishwater dimwits.  In the main, Americans have elected mostly memorable men to fill the top spot.  Indeed, each one - whether famous, infamous or somewhere in between, is known to history by at least one nickname:

1. George Washington: “The Father of His Country”

2. John Adams: “His Rotundity” and “Old Sink and Swim”

3. Thomas Jefferson: “The Sage of Monticello"“

4. James Madison: “Little Jemmy” and “Father of the Constitution”

5. James Monroe: “The Last Cocked Hat”

6. John Quincy Adams “Old Man Eloquent”

7. Andrew Jackson: “Old Hickory,” “King Andrew,” and “Jackass”

8. Martin Van Buren: “Matty Van,” “Old Kinderhook” and “The Little Magician”

9. William Henry Harrison: “Tippecanoe” and “Old Mum”

10. John Tyler: “His Accidency”

11. James K. Polk: “Young Hickory”

12. Zachary Taylor: “Old Rough and Ready”

13. Millard Fillmore: “The American Louis Philippe”

14. Franklin Pierce: “Handsome Frank”

15. James Buchanan: “Old Buck,” and “Ten-Cent Jimmy”

16. Abraham Lincoln: “Honest Abe,” The Great Emancipator,” and “The Rail Splitter”

17. Andrew Johnson: “The Tennessee Tailor”

18. Ulysses S. Grant: “Unconditional Surrender Grant”

19. Rutherford B. Hayes: “His Fraudulency”

20. James B. Garfield: “Boatman Jim,” and “Preacher President”

21. Chester A. Arthur: “Chet,” and “The Dude President”

22. Grover Cleveland: “His Obstinacy,” and “Uncle Jumbo”

23. Benjamin Harrison: “The Human Iceberg”

24. Grover Cleveland: “His Obstinacy,” and “Uncle Jumbo”

25. William McKinley: “The Napoleon of Protection”

26. Theodore Roosevelt: “TR,” “The Trust Buster,” and “The Hero of San Juan Hill”

27. Wm. Howard Taft: “Big Chief,” and “Big Lub”

28. Woodrow Wilson: “The Schoolmaster”

29. Warren G. Harding: “Wobbly Warren”

30. Calvin Coolidge: “Cool Cal,” and “Silent Cal”

31. Herbert Hoover: “The Great Engineer,” and “The Great Humanitarian”

32. Franklin D. Roosevelt: “FDR,” “Sphinx”

33. Harry S. Truman: “Give ‘em Hell Harry”

34. Dwight D. Eisenhower: “Ike”

35. John F. Kennedy: “JFK,” “Jack”

36. Lyndon B. Johnson: “LBJ,” “Landslide Lyndon”

37. Richard M. Nixon: “Tricky Dick”

38. Gerald R. Ford: “Mr. Nice Guy”

39. Jimmy Carter: “Jimmy,” and “The Peanut Farmer”

40. Ronald Reagan: :The Gipper,” “Dutch,” and “The Teflon President”

41. George H.W. Bush: “Papa Bush” “Bush ‘41”

42. Bill Clinton: “Slick Willie,” “Bubba,” and “The Comeback Kid”

43. George W. Bush: “Dubya” “Bush ‘43”

44. Barack Obama: “No Drama Obama”

45. Donald Trump: “The Donald,” and “Snowflake-in-Chief”

Then too, on this Presidents’ Day weekend, in addition to boning up on their nicknames, it is important to remember some of their more memorable words and expressions. They range from the truly literate and memorable to the self-serving and incomprehensible. I have chosen quotes from a handful of our Chief Executives . . .

GEORGE WASHINGTON:

• “If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”

• “In politics as in philosophy, my tenets are few and simple. The leading one of which, and indeed that which embraces most others, is to be honest and just ourselves and to exact it from others, meddling as little as possible in their affairs where our own are not involved. If this maxim was generally adopted, wars would cease and our swords would soon be converted into reap hooks and our harvests be more peaceful, abundant, and happy.”

• “99% of failures come from people who make excuses.”

• “I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.”

• “Experience teaches us that it is much easier to prevent an enemy from posting themselves than it is to dislodge them after they have got possession.”

• “I conceive a knowledge of books is the basis upon which other knowledge is to be built.”

THOMAS JEFFERSON:

• “Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.”

• “I cannot live without books.”

• “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”

• “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.”

• “When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.”

• “Too old to plant trees for my own gratification, I shall do it for my posterity.”

ABRAHAM LINCOLN:

• “Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.”

• “I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.”

• “He has the right to criticize who has the heart to help.”

• “I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.

• “We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.”

• “What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.”

THEODORE ROOSEVELT:

• “The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.”

• “No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man's permission when we ask him to obey it.”

• “When you're at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on.”

• “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”

• “No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care”

FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT:

• “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.”

• “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.”

• “Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.”

• “The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize.”

• “Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

• “Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.”

HARRY S. TRUMAN”

• “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”

• “Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.”

• “The buck stops here.”

• “Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.”

• “My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. To tell the truth, there's hardly a difference.”

• “Democrats work to help people who need help. That other party, they work for people who don't need help. That's all there is to it.”

DWIGHT DAVID EISENHOWER:

• “The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.”

• “A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.”

• “Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history.”

JOHN F. KENNEDY:

• "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."

• "Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."

• “The supreme reality of our time is the vulnerability of this planet.”

BARACK OBAMA:

• “Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.”

• “There's not a liberal America and a conservative America - there's the United States of America.”

• “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”

•  “Americans still believe in an America where anything’s possible – they just don’t think their leaders do.” 

• “You can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time.” 

• “The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don't wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.”    

DONALD J. TRUMP:

• “I feel a lot of people listen to what I have to say.”

• “A lot of people don't like to win. They actually don't know how to win, and they don't like to win because down deep inside they don't want to win.”

• “The point is that you can't be too greedy.”

• “I know words. I have the best words.”    

Come November, we the people will either be looking ahead to the inauguration of the 46th POTUS or the 2nd inauguration of the 45th. Whatever the case that man (or woman) will be joining the most select club in the history of the United States. May that person bring to that office the leadership skills of a Washington or Eisenhower, the manifold interests of a Jefferson or a Theodore Roosevelt, the humility of a Lincoln or a Carter, the faithful idealism of a Wilson and the class of an FDR, JFK or Barack Obama.

And tomorrow, perhaps instead of shopping, spend a bit of time contemplating about where the country is going, and who can best lead us through some particularly stormy seas.

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

If You Can't Be With the One You Love . . .

Sam Adams (1722-1802)

We begin with a bit of prophecy from one of the nation’s Founder’s, Sam Adams. Writing to his soon-to-become former friend, James Warren (1726-1808), President of the Massachusetts Provincial congress, Samuel Adams (1722-1802) addressed the seminal importance of morality, civility and education to the cause of liberty: “No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and virtue is preserved. On the contrary, when people are universally ignorant, and debauched in their manners, they will sink under their own weight without the aid of foreign invaders.” Now, whether or not Sam was a brewer (likely an urban legend), he did know a thing or two — or three - about what best nourished liberty and democracy.

It goes without saying that Adams would have shuddered in shame at the current IMPOTUS and a goodly portion of American society for being bereft of both “knowledge and virtue,” while also being “debauched in manners.” And were he alive to witness the unfolding of the 2020 presidential election, he would likely need a steady supply of his eponymous ale in order to deal with his frustration and pain. Operating under the haze of a case of “Sam ‘76,” he would likely find it difficult - if not impossible - to find a candidate to back . . . just like we moderns. Each of the Democrats “still standing” have their die-hard supporters. Then too, polling from a host of different sources shows that at this point - just after the disastrous Iowa caucuses and less than 2 days before the New Hampshire primary - nothing is even remotely close to being “sewn up.” And for those of us waiting for our state primaries to finally arrive, it is a time to weigh all sorts of things . . . like what’s most important: supporting the candidate who best exemplifies our positions and ideology, or voting for the person we feel has the best chance of defeating IMPOTUS, holding the House and capturing the Senate?

To be certain, it’s not an easy call. But what’s even more than certain is that the decision we make - between idealism and reality - is likely the most important one we shall ever make. At this point in primary season, Democratic daggers are beginning to be unsheathed - to be used against fellow Democrats. Fortunately, they have yet to become long knives or spears. Historically, Democrats have never really mastered the art of swordsmanship - let alone the sort of bare-knuckle brawling we’ve come to expect from the other side.

At this point in presidential season, there are few certainties . . . save these:

1. IMPOTUS will be as vicious, deceitful and fright-inducing as any candidate in American history. For him, the nastier-than-hell means will more than justify his venal, authoritarian ends.

2. Unless Democrats can circle the wagons around one candidate who will not fall into the trap of continually responding to Republican viciousness, we will lose not only the election - but the future as well.

3. That no matter who the Democratic candidate shall be (perhaps save one), that individual will be repeatedly tarred with the brush of “extreme left-wing Socialism” - despite the fact that few really, truly know what Socialism is . . . and is not.

Desperate times (and these are desperate times) call not for desperate measures; they call for courageous, intelligent, thinking-out-of-the-box measures.

We began this essay with a quote from Sam Adams as a way of succinctly analyzing the extraordinary challenge before us. We now turn to Steven Stills, rock guitarist extraordinaire (Buffalo Springfield, CSNY, Manassas), and one of the best songwriters of the past half century, to lay out what that courageous, intelligent, thinking-out-of-the-box strategy well may entail. On his 1970 self-titled album, Stills - along with David Crosby, Graham Nash, Rita Coolidge and John Sebastian had a big hit with a song entitled Love the One You’re With. Within the body of this catchy 3:05 song, Stills et al sing:

If you're down and confused

And you don't remember who you're talking to
Concentration slip away
Because your baby is so far away

Well, there's a rose in a fisted glove
And the eagle flies with the dove
And if you can’t be with the one you love, honey
Love the one you’re with
Love the one you’re with

Stills, it should be said, in addition to being in the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame as both a solo artist and two different bands, has long been an activist in the Democratic Party. In 2000, he served as a member of the Democratic Party credentials committee from Florida during the Democratic National Convention, and was a delegate in previous years. And so, I find within Stills’ lyrics a most thoughtful - call it prophetic - statement. If we can’t be with the one we love - e.g. the candidate who best fulfills our ideological and programmatic wishes - perhaps we should love the one we’re with. In this case, it may well mean that we must think out-of-the-box, and support a candidate who stands with us on many issues, but - and this is a huge BUT - stands the best chance of carrying us to victory by defeating the autocrat-loving tyrant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

That person is Mayor Michael Bloomberg who, it may well turn out, was the real winner of the Iowa caucus. 

As early as 2016, Bloomberg said in a speech in Philadelphia that Trump was “.  . the wrong guy to be president. The way he treats people, the way he runs an organization, and the way he makes decisions is not good for this country.”  Of course, for Mayor Bloomberg to receive the Democratic nomination, it would take a “brokered convention,” which some claim is a relic of the past . . . when party professionals in “smoke-filled rooms” would decide whom to nominate. Back in those times, when there was no clear-cut nominee by the time of a national convention (this goes for both Democrats and Republicans) there might be 50, 75 100 ballots or more before the old pols stepped in and made the decision. Sometimes, the candidate they anointed went on to suffer a stunning defeat:

• The 1924 Democratic National Convention was hopelessly deadlocked—delegates and party officials were deeply divided on whether their platform should endorse Prohibition, and whether or not to condemn the Ku Klux Klan. After factions led by New York governor Al Smith and former Treasury Secretary William McAdoo deadlocked for a stunning 102 ballots, a compromise candidate—ambassador John W. Davis—was named the presidential nominee on ballot no. 103. (Davis ultimately lost in a landslide to incumbent Republican president Calvin Coolidge.)

• The last time a Republican convention opened without a nominee decided in the primaries was in 1976. In one of the few times in history where an incumbent president was challenged in his re-election bid, Gerald Ford had a tiny lead in the popular vote and delegate count over California governor Ronald Reagan. A delegate ballot had to take place, but on the first ballot, enough delegates switched to Ford’s camp to secure him the nomination. (He lost in the general election to Jimmy Carter.)

In order for brokered conventions to work several things must be in place:

• A candidate who does not have to be introduced to the convention; that person must already be well-known to the masses.

• A professional political broker to act as “convention campaign manager” for the candidate in question.

• A field of candidates that cannot satisfy a majority of convention delegates.

Of course, there are negatives associated with Bloomberg:

• Before registering as a Democrat, he was a registered Republican and then switched to registered Independent.

• In 2004, Bloomberg supported G.W. Bush (a capture of a C-Span clip is already up on the internet.)

• While Mayor of New York, he instituted the “Stop and Frisk” policy which enraged the black community and made him anathema to many liberals, progressives and defenders of civil liberties. (The policy was eventually ruled unconstitutional by Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin in 2013.)  Despite apologizing for the policy years later, many still hold it against him.  In the same breath, it should be remembered that unlike IMPOTUS, Bloomberg was a highly successful mayor; one who was reelected twice.  

• Instead of spending upwards of $1 billion on a presidential race, many urge him to instead contribute that amount to Democratic candidates around the country (he has).

• Over the years, Bloomberg has made some sexist comments.

• Bloomberg is Jewish . . . and the 14th wealthiest person on the planet . . . which plays into the stereotype of anti-Semites.  Not to worry: they wouldn’t be voting for him under any circumstances, so there’s likely no net negative here.

On the other side of the aisle, Bloomberg is perhaps the one man who can truly get under Trump’s very thin skin . . . especially when it comes to the issue of wealth. Bloomberg is a self-made man from a working-class Jewish family (his father was a bookkeeper for a dairy company). Bloomberg is worth an estimated $61 billion to Trump’s . . . whatever. The IMPOTUS is very, very insecure when it comes to his net worth and net indebtedness. Bloomberg knows how to pick that scab. The other day, when asked by a CBS reporter “Do you think people are interested in seeing two billionaires fight it out on Twitter?” Bloomberg, stared at the reporter, arched an eyebrow and responded, “Two billionaires? Who’s the second one?”

Where Trump could easily (if incorrectly) attack any potential Democratic presidential candidate as being a “left-wing Socialist” in thrall to the likes of Pelosi, Schiff and OAC, using the same rhetoric on Bloomberg would be asinine. He is a capitalist with compassion, who has been giving away his vast fortune for years, funding many, many projects and programs . . . most notably climate change and the elimination of assault weapons.

Unlike the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Bloomberg carries himself as a gentleman, and despite being 7 inches shorter than IMPOTUS (5’8” to Trump’s 6’3”) seems to be much taller. Were Trump to loom up behind him during a televised debate (as he famously did to Hillary Clinton), it is likely that the mayor could chase him back to his corner without raising his voice.

Although Bloomberg isn’t as progressive as some of the current crop of candidates, he does support a hefty new tax on the hyper wealthy, favors a Medicare-For-All program, is fervently pro-choice, is despised by the NRA, and does not run a “one man show.” He employs more than 20,000 people worldwide, reads voluminously, and knows how to take advice. And unlike ‘45, who carries enough personal baggage to fill the cargo holds of a fleet of 747s, Michael Bloomberg’s “dirty linen” can apparently be packed into a single overnight bag . . . with enough room left over for a Kindle, a change of shoes and a laptop.

And oh yes, did I mention that he would likely have the best chance of defeating Donald Trump? OK, there are going to be a lot of Democratic activists who are going to find fault with the mere thought of him being the party standard-bearer. But at what cost? Remember, the question is whether it is more important to support the candidate with whom we share the same ideals and programmatic wishes, or the one who stands the best chance of winning . . . and isn’t that far off the programmatic mark when all is said and done?

Stephen Stills was and is correct: “If you can’t be with the one you love, honey, love the one you’re with.”

I am going to support the “rose in the fisted glove.”

268 days until the Presidential election.

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone 

Is History History?

Among those who are reasonably well-educated, it is generally agreed upon that Herodotus (that’s him in the photo on the left) is “The Father of History.” Born and raised in Halicarnassus (modern-day Turkey), Herodotus (c. 484-425 B.C.E) is best known for his work The Histories, a straightforward account of the origins and execution of the Greco-Persian Wars, which lasted from 499 to 479 B.C.E. “Here is the account,” the work begins, “of the inquiry of Herodotus of Halicarnassus in order that the deeds of men not be erased by time, and that the great and miraculous works–both of the Greeks and the barbarians–not go unrecorded.”  Most of what we know about the Battle of Marathon is from Herodotus. “The Histories” also incorporated observations and stories, both factual and fictional, from Herodotus’ travels.

Ever since, the writing, editing and reading of history has been of extraordinary importance. Across the centuries and generations, the study of history has been of paramount importance. “'Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it” philosopher Georges Santayana. Speaking before the House of Commons, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill modified Santayana just a tad, changing it to “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.' Whichever is the true rendering, the truth remains; without knowing, understanding and caring about history, our mutual future is in dire jeopardy.

Over the past several weeks and days, national attention has been fixated on the United States Senate as to whether or not the Upper Chamber would vote to convict or acquit our impeached president of the United States (IMPOTUS), Donald J. Trump of abuse of power and contempt of Congress.  Among those Republicans in the political cross-hairs, none were more prominent than Senators Romney (UT), Murkowski (AK), Collins (ME) and Alexander (TN). All 4 had publicly spoken about their desire to subpoena witnesses for the senate trial. In the long-run, Senators Romney and Collins decided to vote in favor of subpoenaing witnesses like former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton, Acting Chief of Staff and Director of the Office of Management and Budget Nick Mulvaney. and Michael Duffey, a senior official in the Office of Management and Budget. Senator Romney evinced a level of moral courage seldom seen among members of the Republican caucus.  As can best be determined, Senator Susan Collins was given a pass by Majority Leader McConnell: not only was her vote unneeded; had she voted against subpoenaing witnesses, voters in Maine would likely have voted her out of office.  In the meantime, Senators Alexander and Murkowski changed their minds stating, in essence, that although the IMPOTUS was obviously guilty of the charges against him, they did not add up to impeachable offenses. So far as Tennessee Senator Alexander, who is retiring and thus not running for reelection, his rationale is, to my way of thinking nearly incomprehensible.  On his official website, he (or his staff) wrote:

I worked with other senators to make sure that we have the right to ask for more documents and witnesses, but there is no need for more evidence to prove something that has already been proven and that does not meet the United States Constitution’s high bar for an impeachable offense. …The Constitution does not give the Senate the power to remove the president from office and ban him from this year’s ballot simply for actions that are inappropriate. 

“The question then is not whether the president did it, but whether the United States Senate or the American people should decide what to do about what he did. I believe that the Constitution provides that the people should make that decision in the presidential election that begins in Iowa on Monday. …Our founding documents provide for duly elected presidents who serve with ‘the consent of the governed,’ not at the pleasure of the United States Congress. Let the people decide.” 

Likewise, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski’s logic was more than a bit skewed: 

“Given the partisan nature of this impeachment from the very beginning and throughout. I have come to the conclusion that there will be no fair trial in the Senate. I don’t believe the continuation of this process will change anything. It is sad for me to admit that, as an institution, the Congress has failed.”

What Senators Alexander and Murkowski - along with a lot of other Republicans (and a few Democrats) - are going to wind up with is a tainted reputation - an acidic asterisk - for the rest of time for being elected leaders who, for whatever reason, decided that despite the IMPOTUS’s obvious guilt, were not going to vote to support hearing from a single witness against him. Imagine that: a trial of momentous import without a single witness! This makes virtually no sense. It seems that in the long run, Senators Alexander, Murkowski et al care not a whit about the judgment of history; they are far, far more concerned about what the president, his henchmen and supporters care about them today.

In other words: to hell with tomorrow.

History has become history . . .

In this essay’s second paragraph, we presented the nearly identical aphorisms of Santayana and Churchill about those who forget history being doomed to repeat it. Pretty chilling stuff. Well, in this instance - the senate’s 51-49 vote against subpoenaing witnesses - the man of the hour is neither as wise as the former nor as politically adroit as the latter. In this case the aphorist of note was a legendary industrialist and multi-billionaire (about $200 billion in today’s $$$) who also happened to be one of most the hateful bigots of all time: Henry Ford.  Unlike Santayana and Churchill, Ford believed with every fiber of his being that “History is bunk.”  In a widely-reported 1916 interview with a journalist from the Chicago Tribune, Ford told the writer, one Charles N. Wheeler:

"Say, what do I care about Napoleon? What do we care about what they did 500 or 1,000 years ago? I don't know whether Napoleon did or did not try to get across and I don't care. It means nothing to me. History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's dam is the history we make today."

(It should be noted that not only did Ford create the industrial assembly line and the world’s first affordable automobile, he also purchased a newspaper [The Dearborn Independent] in order to publish a multi-issue screed entitled The International Jew: The World’s Problem . . . which incorporated most, if not all of, history’s most vicious anti-Semitic tract: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.  To this very day, Ford remains a god to White Nationalists, neo-Nazis and conspiracy addicts of all stripes.)

It is more than depressing to imagine people who are supposedly of accomplishment and rank, people who are in a position to play a significant role on the stage of history, having so little - if any - concern whatsoever about their future place on that stage. I guess so long as they maintain their political positions, not draw the fury or ire of their “highly stable genius” and live out lives of comfort and recognition, that’s all that matters. I for one cannot understand how so many people whose lives are both guided and guarded by deeply-held religious scruples and theological concerns of eternal life, can at the same time be so lacking in curiosity - so uncaring - about their place in the annals of history. Does it not matter to them that history - if not G-d co-self (my term for “him/herself”) - will have the final judgement. Has it not dawned on them that in five, ten, fifty years and more, historians will have uncovered just how corrupt, self-serving and traitorous this administration has been from even before day one? That in large part, it was due to their spineless lack of moral courage, their robotic need to put partisanship above patriotism that led to America’s no longer being the world’s “last great hope?” If history will remember them at all, it will not likely be for their greatness . . . but for their turning their backs on both the people they were supposed to selflessly serve and on history itself.

Tell me: has history, like Herodotus, himself, become history?

274 days until the presidential election.

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

Kobe

Just got a call from my slightly older sister Erica (a.k.a. ‘Riki’) to give me a heads-up on a tragedy I was reading about at the very moment I picked up the phone: the incomprehensible death of Laker great Kobe Bryant. What a horrible, horrible tragedy. Such unbridled sadness and pain. Unless you’re an Angelino you cannot truly comprehend what we’re going through. While the rest of the world refers to Los Angeles as “La La Land,” we, who are proud natives, people who know our hometown as El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora Reina de Los Angeles, are a single, multi-ethnic family. If your Spanish is a bit rusty (or nonexistent) it translates as “The town of our lady, queen of the angels.” We are simply Angelinos, meaning “angels.” And, as Angels, we have just lost one of our greatest celestial heroes: Kobe Bryant. A mere 41-years old, Kobe was not only a titan of the round ball; he was, is, and always shall be a superstar.  As Angelinos, we feel a special. emotional kinship with the angels who have added so much to our city . . . even those who were neither born nor raised in our midst.

A Philadelphian by birth, Kobe and his family moved to Rieti, Italy, where his father, retired NBA player Joe “Jellybean” Bryant had gone to play for an Italian team. During his years in Rieti, Kobe became fluent in Italian; he eventually became fluent in Spanish as well. Returning to Philadelphia, Kobe was an eighteen-year-old high school phenom when first signed by the Lakers in 1996.  He would go on to become one of the greatest basketball players of all-time; an 18-time NBA all-star who won 5 NBA championships, became a two-time scoring champion, as well as an Academy Award-winner (for a documentary short film Dear Basketball ) and a philanthropist of note.  And while he did have his dark, nasty moments, became embroiled in a sex scandal and was fined $100,000 by the NBA for making homophobic slurs, was able to pick himself up, dust himself off, grow up, and make a triumphant return to the winner’s circle. His sudden death in a fiery helicopter crash has taken the breath away from people across the country and around the world . . . but likely nowhere harder or worse than in our beloved City of the Angels. For here - in Los Angeles - Kobe was far, far more than a mere basketball immortal; he was our son, our brother our neighbor. His helicopter went down in Calabasas (Spanish for “pumpkins”) in the extreme western end of the San Fernando Valley, site of the Motion Picture Country Home and a 20-minute walk from my mother’s and sister’s residences. He was a neighbor; a 41-year old father of 4 daughters; a retiree devoted to making the world a better place through the giving away of his vast fortune. He was just beginning his life’s second act . . .

Where a majority of readers and followers of this blog can identify Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, Mitch McConnell and Steve Scalise, most people cannot.  However, a far, far higher number of folks across this country and around the world can give you line and verse about Kobe Bryant.  In fact, he is, was always shall be one of those rare individuals - some famous, others infamous - who went through life being known by a single name . . . people like “Shaq,” “Cher,” “Sting,” “Marilyn,” “Rembrandt,” “Casanova” and “Mussolini.”  Kobe now becomes part of that celestial gathering of talented people who shed this mortal coil far, far too early: Rudolph Valentino, George Gershwin, Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison; Lou Gehrig, Thurman Munson, Roberto Clemente, and Len Bias; Sylvia Plath, Arthur Rimbeau and the Brontë sisters, Anne and Emily; RFK, JFK and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

One of the eeriest and perhaps most hopeful aspects of Kobe and Gianna (Gigi) Bryant’s horrible deaths is how quickly the nation’s emotional “channels” have been changed . . . from anger, intolerance, viciousness and disunity to mournful togetherness.  For the first time in ages, we as a nation are pretty much sharing the same teary-eyed feeling. Most of us are now mourners; most of us are Angelinos.  Oh sure, there are those hiding behind the barrier of Internet anonymity, reminding everyone that Kobe was far from a saint and rehashing his shortcomings and mortal errors.  I would imagine that some of them hold even greater sinners than Kobe Bryant in far higher esteem.  Whatever happened to not speaking ill of the dead?  But for now, at least, a vast majority can for the first time in a long time, share a deeply human emotion: ineffable loss. May this brief unity - forged through shock and sadness though it may be - act as a reminder that life is short, and that we should try getting along with one another.

In the words of John Lennon, another whose life ended far too soon:

Life is very short

And there's no time
For fussing and fighting, my friend
I have always thought
That it's a crime
So I will ask
You once
Again
Try to see it my way

Only time will tell if I am right or I am wrong
While you see it your way

There's a chance that we may fall apart before too long
We can work it out

We can work it out.

Farewell Kobe.

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

Adam Schiff: Superego to '45's Id

There are any number of Yiddish words which have, over the years, become recognizable to speakers of American English. Most of these folks - whether Jewish or not - know the words mentsch, meshugga (or meshuggeneh), chutzpah, drek, gonif and perhaps even kvell, to mention but a few This last one - kvell - which figuratively translates as “boast” or “brag” takes a bit of explaining. When one boasts or brags, it is frequently about oneself, and just as frequently can be a bit overblown and self—serving. When one kvells however, it is rarely if ever about oneself; one kvells over a child, grandchild . . . even the family dog or cat. And unlike boasting, kvell’n (the verbal form) can be better than true. In the Jewish world a kvell can be as simple as “My daughter the doctor” or “My grandson the Hollywood screenwriter.” To kvell is to publicly bust one’s buttons over someone else . . .

Imagine, if you will, how much kvelling (that’s “Yinglish”) Ed Schiff (Rep. Adam’s Schiff’s father) must be doing these days. For not only is his son Chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s choice for lead “Manager” in the upcoming impeachment proceeding against the POTUS, but has just been named by the Gallup Poll one of America’s 10 most admired men - a list which includes Barack Obama and Donald Trump (tied for first at 18%), former President Jimmy Carter, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Pope Francis, Bernie Sanders, the Dalai Lama, and Warren Buffett.  Ed, who is not one to spread the word about either of his sons (there’s also Adam’s older brother Dan, a financial planner in San Jose) couldn’t help but send out en email to family and friends giving us a proud-as-proud-can-be heads-up about Adam’s Gallup Poll ranking. That’s the living breathing definition of kvellling! 

Mazal tov Ed!

Without question, Adam is the best choice for lead manager in the impeachment trial. For in addition to being both terribly bright and a highly skilled, experienced prosecutor; he is the straightest arrow in the Congressional quiver, possesses a thick skin, a low temperature setting, and can show a surprisingly witty sense of humor. In other words, he is, in just about every imaginable way, the bipolar opposite of the man on trial. Where Trump is a congenital liar, Schiff has long been addicted to the truth; where The Donald barks and threatens, Adam hums and listens.

Brother Dan recently recalled a situation when Adam was about 7: Already a striver, Adam determined that he would outdo the neighborhood boy who was the best “burp-talker.” His relentless faux belches wore on his brother’s nerves, until Dan threw his jacket and the zipper caught Adam squarely in the mouth. Dan begged Adam to come up with a story, any story, to tell their parents. Adam howled. “There was all this blood. But what triggered him was that I was asking him to lie,” recalled Dan. “The fact that he was being steered to a lie . . . that really rankled him.”

Where the POTUS is voluble, high-strung, insulting and can, without notice, go off like a Roman candle; Adam Schiff is mostly low-key and laid-back. Schiff also possesses a far, far greater degree of self-awareness than the man he is prosecuting, and thus understands the important advantage it gives him: “What I’ve discovered is that ... in an irrational time when you have an erratic hothead in the Oval Office, there is a real premium on not having your hair on fire,” Schiff recently reflected to a reporter. “I suspect that part of it is just my own temperament, which I couldn’t change even if I wanted to.”

This is not to say that Adam Schiff takes all the insults lying down. During the Intelligence Committee impeachment hearings he compared the president’s furiously debated phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to a mob boss engaged in a “shakedown.” Trump and his followers then bestowed two nicknames on the committee chair: “Shifty Schiff” and “Pencil Neck Adam Schiff.” He has been called a “liar” and “traitor,” and watched as Republicans urged that he himself be impeached on grounds of being a traitor.

In Adam Schiff’s Capitol Hill office, one will find a photo of President Theodore Roosevelt, the nation’s 26th Chief Executive. Although I do not know of a certainty why T.R.’s photo adorns the wall, I would guess it’s because of a truism that the old Bull Moose committed to print in a 1918 essay: “Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President . . . “ (n.b. the rest of the quote, from an essay entitled ‘Lincoln and Free Speech'  continues: “. . . or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him in so far as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth — whether about the President or about anyone else — save in the rare cases where this would make known to the enemy information of military value which would otherwise be unknown to him.)  This is the truth which permeates Adam Schiff’s political life.

More than being Donald John Trump’s legal and political adversary, Adam Schiff has also become what might be referred to as “The Superego to ‘45’s Id.” What in the world does that mean?” one may well ask.  

Before answering, let’s dip a toe into the pond of Freudian psychoanalytic personality theory. Don’t worry: it’s neither difficult nor obscure. According to Freud, there are 3 parts of the human personality which develop at different stages of a young person’s life. These three parts combine to create the complex behavior of human beings. He refers to them as “id,” “ego,” and “superego.”

• The “Id” (das Es): the most basic part of the personality, the Id represents our most basic, animalistic urges. It is the first part of the personality to develop. The Id seeks instant gratification for our wants and needs . . . such as a man who grabs and kisses women at will . . . because that’s what he wants to do. If animalistic needs or wants are not met, a person can become tense, anxious, or angry.

• The Ego (das ich): The ego deals with reality, trying to meet the desires of the id in a way that is socially acceptable in the world. The same man, really wanting to grab a pretty woman and kiss her, refrains from doing so because he knows he could get into a lot of trouble. He compromises by complimenting her on her glasses or hairstyle.

• The superego (Über-Ich) The superego develops last, and is based on morals and judgments about right and wrong. Even though the superego and the ego may reach the same decision about something (such as not grabbing and kissing a beautiful woman), the superego's reason for that decision is based mostly on moral values, while the ego's decision is based more on what others will think or what the consequences of an action could be on the individual.

Taking our toes out of the Freudian pond, it should now be pretty understandable what referring to Adam Schiff as “The Superego to ‘45’s Id” means. What fuels Donald Trump’s actions (mainly if not exclusively) is his Id - the most primitive, psychologically puerile and self-centered aspect of his being.  He does what he does and says what he says because he wants what he wants. And if he cannot get it or finds his actions, statements or claims challenged, lashes out with childlike anger. Period.  He has little or no ego (at least in the Freudian sense of the term) to act as a restraining mechanism.  Adam Schiff, on the other hand - like many fully-realized, better balanced human beings - is guided largely by his superego.  He knows right from wrong and uses that knowledge as a measuring rod for his actions.  Although accused of being a  “deranged ultra-leftist who hates America” by both the POTUS, his followers and political allies, he is anything but.  Adam Schiff’s upbringing, education, professional experience and superego have made him a quintessential moderate . . . in both life and in politics. When it comes to acting as manager in the upcoming Senate trial, Adam Schiff is the ideal package; one which will no doubt stick in the Trumpian craw for the rest of his life. 

But before getting on with the “rest of his life,” ‘45 and his team must deal with a prosecution, a trial and a vote . . . not to mention a headlong collision between the supreme presidential id and a towering superego. I predict that the proceedings will so enrage the POTUS that he will find it next to impossible to forgo Tweeting, performing for the camera or sinking even deeper into the swamp of absurdity.  If his ‘45 further embarrasses himself before the public, it could cause some Senate Republicans (especially those up for reelection) to start paying more attention to their own egos and superegos . . . even if it is at the expense of their leader’s Id.

Adam Schiff, who is my pick for either Attorney General or Director of the CIA in a Democratic White House, is the right man in the right place at the right time.

And for that, we can all rightfully kvell.

287 1/2 days until the election . . .

Copyright 2020 Kurt F. Stone

Wag the Dog?

It goes without saying that General Qasem Soleimani, the late head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard-Force Quds was a despicable, blood-thirsty terrorist. (It should be noted that there are several different spellings used for Soleimani - “Qassem” and “Qasem” “Soleimani” and “Suleimani.” Take your pick.)

Shortly after his assassination this past Saturday via an American drone strike near the Baghdad International Airport, President Trump called Soleimani “the number one terrorist anywhere in the world.” I won’t argue with Mr. Trump’s assessment; Soleimani’s drone-induced death - along with Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and at least 10 other people - is not being mourned anywhere in the civilized world. Whether Soleimani’s being taken out will result in fewer or greater terrorist attacks against Western targets is yet to be realized.

Nonetheless, the Iranian Tasnim News Agency quoted a senior Revolutionary Guards commander as saying Iran will punish Americans wherever they are within reach of the Islamic Republic. Additionally, General Gholamali Abuhamzeh, the commander of the Guards in the southern province of Kerman (where Soleimani was born 62 years ago) raised the prospect of possible attacks on ships in the Gulf.  Wasting not a moment, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appointed the deputy commander of the Quds Force, Brigadier General Esmail Ghaani as Solemani’s replacement. In a statement, the Supreme Leader said that the program of the Quds Force "will be unchanged from the time of his predecessor."

Needless to say, Trump’s order to take out Soleimani has caused one hell of lot of press - both here at home and around the globe, some of it both negative and threatening, some of it both positive and questioning.  By and large, Republicans and Trump’s Israeli “amen corner” see in the assassination an act of strategic daring - the fulfillment of  a  political promise.  Democrats and many of  America’s Western allies are up in arms; Democrats, because the drone attack was accomplished without a single one of them being given a heads-up; our Western allies for pretty much the same reason.  They see in the president’s action the reemergence of a “go-it-alone” cowboy tactic, hauntingly reminiscent of the Reagan years.  There is also a widespread belief that the attack was predictable; a “wag the dog” strategy meant to divert attention from ‘45’s impeachment, while putting- a lethal arrow in his reelection quiver.  

For those who have been out of touch for the past many years, Wag the Dog is a 1997 Barry Levinson satirical dramady starring Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro and Ann Heche in which shortly before an election, a spin-doctor and a Hollywood producer join efforts to fabricate a war in order to cover up a Presidential sex scandal.  The concept - if not the specific idiom - has been around since the days of the ancient Greeks and Romans. They called it deus ex machina, literally, “God from the machine.” In their ancient dramas and comedies, whenever a plot had hit a serious snag, the playwright would literally have a person or thing hoisted suddenly and unexpectedly onto the stage by means of a crane, thereby providing an artificial or contrived solution to an apparently insoluble difficulty.  

Republicans, of course, aren’t the only ones who have been suspected of wagging the dog. Back in August 1998, three days after President Bill (“I did not have sex with that woman”) Clinton’s unsatisfying apology to the nation, and on the same day that Monica Lewinsky’s returned to the grand jury, the U.S. military struck in Afghanistan and Sudan, causing skeptics to ask: Are they truly a response to the Kenya-Tanzania bombings of American embassies, or a manufactured crisis to divert public attention from President Clinton’s personal troubles? Or, as one reporter asked then-Defense Secretary William Cohen at a news briefing on the attacks, isn’t there a “striking resemblance” to “Wag the Dog”? Cohen, forced to address the issue, said, in essence, of course not.

The employment of a “wag the dog” (or deus ex machina) strategy antedates the Clintons and Trumps of this world by nearly a century. In the last days of the 19th century, it was William Randolph Hearst employing the “You provide the photographs, I’ll provide the war” which launched America in the Spanish-American War. Who benefited from this egregious Yellow Journalism? President William McKinley and his soon-to-become successor, Theodore Roosevelt.

Indeed, there’s nothing new under the sun.

The political value of “Wagging the dog” is certainly not unknown to Donald Trump or his advisers.  Back in 2011-12 - long before the real estate mogul entered the world of hardcore politics - Trump repeatedly predicted that then-President Barack Obama would start a war between the U.S. and Iran to help secure a second term in the White House. “Our president will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate,” then reality-television star Donald Trump said in a video uploaded to YouTube in November 2011. “I believe that he will attack Iran sometime prior to the election because he thinks that’s the only way he can get elected. Isn’t it pathetic?”  Asked about this in early 2020, now-President Trump has been afflicted with a raging case of amnesia . . . 

When asked by members of the press the obvious question “why now?” regarding Suleimani’s assassination, the POTUS and members of his administration said that they were acting on incontrovertible intelligence that the the Iranians were planning on a series of deadly terrorist attacks against American interests and troops in the near future. This is less than reassuring, and for a couple of reasons:

1. From almost day one of his administration, ‘45 has roundly and loudly denigrated the American intelligence community, saying that he knows far, far more than they do. Now he is relying upon their findings?

2. That despite Suleimani being the leader of one of the planet’s most menacing, best organized terrorist forces, his leadership was not essential; the Quds Force’s overarching plans and grand design will continue with or without him.

3. Despite being in office for nearly 3 years, ‘45 has never developed anything approaching a “grand strategy” - when it comes to Iran. To be fair, Trump isn’t singularly responsible for this lack. Although there have certainly been “topple the Iranian mullahs” hawks in the government ever since the fall of the Shah (John Bolton being a prime example), nobody has developed an overall understanding of America’s goals, tactics or end game.

So, answering the questions “Why now?” and “What now?” are as elusive and unknowable as ever. That’s a large part of the problem of having a Presidency-via-Twitter. Being limited to precisely 280 keystrokes per Tweet presents obvious difficulties. When one is telling the world precisely the what and why of leading America, the task is impossible. In a Saturday night Tweet-storm ‘45 wrote:

“. . . if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets,"  the U.S. has targeted 52 Iranian sites including — "some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD

On Sunday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appeared to walk back Trump's statements on ABC's This Week. "We'll behave lawfully. We'll behave inside the system. We always have, and we always will," he said on Sunday morning. That evening, ‘45 doubled down on his threat, telling reporters "They're allowed to kill our people. They're allowed to torture and maim our people. They're allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people," And we're not allowed to touch their cultural sites? It doesn't work that way." The next day, Defense Secretary Mike Esper indicated that U.S. forces would carry out the president’s threat, saying, “We will follow the laws of armed conflict.”  In discussing this particular aspect of ‘45’s unbalanced threats with my good friend and esteemed colleague, Professor Emeritus Gil Klajman (a truly wise and worldly man) he posed the question: “Who do you think put the idea of attacking precisely ‘52 Iranian cultural sites’ into his head?  I mean, who in their right might would believe even for a moment that Trump had any idea of there being 52 sites in Iran to bomb or blow  up?”  This is a fascinating question; one which leads one to wonder who is pulling on Trump’s leash? 

(n.b. The targeting of cultural properties by the U.S. is indeed not allowed. The U.S. is a signatory to the 1954 Hague Convention, which requires "refraining from any act of hostility" directed against cultural property.)

‘45 has also flatly stated that American forces will be withdrawn from Iraq . . . and that thousands more will be sent to the Middle East. How much prior conversation he has had with America’s allies before taking these steps is unknown; lone wolves do have a tendency to keep things close to the vest. Whether or not ‘45 has considered what these steps will do to the shape and future history of the region is debatable. Already, there are signs that oil prices are beginning to undergo a sharp rise . . . something a president really doesn’t want to have happen in an election year.

Some of ‘45’s BFFs - like Fox News commentators Tucker Carlson and Geraldo Rivera have questioned the president’s rationale and wisdom for the Soleimani drone strike, seeing it as a prelude to a wider conflict. As a result of Carlson and Rivera opening their mouths, many of the president’s most steadfast supporters are questioning whether or not Fox has joined the ranks of the “lamestream media,” and shifting their allegiance to the highly conservative “One America News Network.” Even Israeli P.M. Bibi Netanyahu - whose own political future is in the cross-hairs - has ordered his Cabinet ministers not to speak to the press about the Soleimani assassination in order to prevent public statements that might create the impression Israel was involved in the operation.  Obviously Netanyahu - who despite his many personal shortcomings is a crafty political operator - understands that Trump’s latest escapade is not in Israel’s best interests.

At this point in time, it is impossible to know for certain whether or not Soleimani’s assassination is a “wag the dog” or deus ex machina response to the many political travails of Donald J. Trump.  Nor is it knowable if this event will further imperil his race for reelection.  Only those with fully functioning crystal balls can know the answer.  And while ‘45’s most ardent fan (as well as those who, in general, believe him to be a mindless buffoon, will applaud his having taken out a truly evil man, there remains the question of what effect, in the long run, it will have on the United States, Israel, the Middle East and the 2020 election.  

Perhaps only Barry Levinson and David Mamet (the screenwriter) know the answer . . .

273 days until the general election.

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

Tempus Fugit

One of the universal truths which exist outside the bounds of logic is this: that the older one becomes, the quicker time flies (tempus fugit).  Within the logical sphere, of course, tempus fugit is pure twaddle; no matter what one’s age, a day will always consist of 24 hours, a week of 7 days, a year of 12 months, and a decade of precisely 5,256,000 minutes.  This is, again, within the realm of reason.  Emotionally and experientially however, time does seem to fly faster and faster with each passing year.  To a 9-year old counting the days until the beginning of summer vacation, a single month feels like an eternity; to a retiree taking a two-week cruise to Alaska, 336 hours go by in the wink of an eye.

You get the point.

Then there is the nether-realm of time - neither long nor short, a combination of blink-of-an-eye fast and agonizingly slow,  As an example, three weeks from today, January 20, 2020, ‘45 will have “served” (?) as POTUS for 3 years - 1,095 days. In some respects these three years have gone by very, very quickly. Indeed, it seems like yesterday when he claimed his inauguration was attended by “up to 1.5 million people” - a figure which photographs clearly debunked. And yet, how many eternities has it been since he began referring to journalists as “among the most dishonest human beings on earth?” In matter of fact, both occurred on the same day: January 21, 2017.

Without question, 2019, filled as it has been with drama, heroism and angst, tragedy and antic lunacy, has, nonetheless flown by. Then too, it has also crawled by at a snail’s pace, leaving behind a trail of shock, horror, hatred and gastropodal slime which although not necessarily lethal, is truly disgusting. Standing at the threshold of 2020, it can’t get here fast enough. Perhaps - just perhaps - the new year will bring hope; hope for a return to the “Yes we can!” weltanschauung of just a few years back.

New Years have long involved the making of resolutions. They can range from the personal - like taking off 10 pounds, quitting smoking or being more charitable - to the communal - such as showing greater civility, fighting against bigotry, prejudice and inequality. Making resolutions is easy; keeping and accomplishing them is a far, far greater challenge.

It is with utter humility that I suggest a few social, political and communal resolutions to consider:

“Seize the Day!”

• To Democrats, Moderate Republicans and Independents: decide what’s most important in the person you nominate to take on ‘45: the ability to defeat him, give walking papers to the likes of McConnell, Graham, Gohmert and Collins and begin to restore America’s position of world leadership or pushing a platform which is beyond the ability of a large swathe of the voting public to grasp, let alone support.

• Quit seeking the “perfect” nominee to take on Boss Tweet and his mutinous minions; doing so can only make “the good” or the “most possible” into an also-ran . . . thereby reelecting IMPOTUS.

• Quit trying to change the minds of those whose minds have already been made up for them. All that can come of such arguments and debates are anger, incivility and even greater civic divisiveness.

• Quit sitting around and merely grousing: Do not expect others to be responsible for the change(s) we seek. We must all work together if we are to bring about those changes we seek.

Unbelievably, the first event in the 2020 presidential campaign season - the Iowa Caucus - takes place a mere 7 weeks from today (Monday, February 3.)  I predict that these 7 weeks will fly by at the speed of light. Tempus Fugit indeed! The day after that caucus, attention will then shift across the country to New Hampshire, whose primary takes place 1 week later (Feb. 11), then on to Nevada (caucus, Feb. 22) and South Carolina (Feb. 29). By the 1st of March, if all goes well, we will add another watchword to our Latin catechism: carpe diem, namely “Seize the Day!”

If 2020 is to be the watershed moment in time we so desperately need, it’s going to take a lot of work, energy, drive and commitment. Let us resolve to keep our eyes on the prize.

Fiat lux (“Let there be light!”)

And to all, wishing you “a Happy Sylvester” - a Happy, healthy and successful 2020.

290 days until the next presidential election.

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

Nancy Pelosi: Strategist Par Excellence

Those who have been paying attention to the televised portion of the impeachment process, have undoubtedly observed the many differences between Democrats and Republicans - and not just in terms of whose side they’re on. The most obvious difference, it seems to me, is that for Democrats, facts are paramount, while for Republicans its process. I guess it’s that way because the Republicans know that arguing against the facts would be a waste of breath. Another obvious difference is that Democrats serving on both the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (chaired by California’s Adam Schiff) and the Judiciary Committee (chaired by New York’s Jerry Nadler) are nowhere near as gratingly voluble as their Republican colleagues. To compare the relative decibel level of an Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell or Jamie Raskin to that of a Devin Nunes, “Gym” Jordan or Doug Collins is akin to comparing Herons to Hoot Owls.

Then, after a long day’s worth of 5-minute speeches, everyone “reserving the balance of their time,” recording votes on useless resolutions that were bound to be defeated along strict party lines and forensic codas by House leaders, came the final votes on 2 articles of impeachment commenced. And standing high above the House, dressed in black, gavel in hand, stood Speaker Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi, the most powerful Democrat in America, both the de facto and de jure leader of her party. When, after results of the first vote were announced, Democrats, below and to her right, began to cheer. Within a nanosecond, the speaker had shot her colleagues a stern look and pointed a tally card directly at them. Immediately, there was total silence from her side of the aisle. The same thing occurred after results of the second vote were announced. Where another Speaker might have used the gavel to quiet down the majority, Speaker Pelosi did it with a single sharp-eyed glance; the power of her presence. Say what you want about her: the woman is a political force to be reckoned with.

And yet, despite how long she’s been around, how much respect she has garnered and her unparalleled political skills, most Americans know little about her . . . outside of the fact that the president calls her “Nervous Nancy,” and that she’s from San Francisco . . . which I guess means we’re supposed to assume she’s some kind of a gonzo Commie. Actually, she comes from a famous and politically powerful Baltimore family; both her father and brother served as mayors of the place John Quincy Adams tagged “The Monumental City.” At the time of her birth in March of 1940, her father, Thomas D’Alesandro, had just been elected to Congress, where he would serve for 3 terms. She’s been around the political scene long enough that she attended JFK’s inaugural 59 years ago and interned in Senator Daniel Brewster’s  (1923-2007) office with fellow college student Steny Hoyer, who today is her #2 (Majority Leader) in the House.

Rep. Schiff and Speaker Pelosi

Since returning to the post of Speaker of the House on January 3, 2019, Nancy Pelosi has been at the epicenter of the entire impeachment debate.  Viewed from afar, it would seem that she has been uncertain as to what to do; of what possible effect going ahead with the impeachment of Donald Trump would have on her party in the 2020 elections and beyond.  Would it put victory firmly into the hands of the GOP or would it work to the Democrats advantage?  Yes, until rather recently, she was publicly against going ahead with the procedure.  And then, shortly after news of the Trump/Zelensky/Hunter Biden imbroglio became public Speaker Pelosi seemed to change her mind and decide to go ahead. In matter of fact, she was just waiting for the right time. And in giving House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff a greater public role than Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler, she was showing great political wisdom; for Rep. Schiff is a world-class prosecutor, totally unflappable, and can go toe-to-toe with the opposition without ever losing his smile. She knew that he would make the ideal face of the forces of impeachment. Look for her to name him - and perhaps Rep. Eric Swalwell (also a former prosecutor) to act as “managers’ (prosecutors) for the upcoming trial in the United States Senate.

Now comes the Speaker’s latest move on the political chessboard: delaying the start of the impeachment trial in the senate.  According to an op-ed piece by Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe published in last Monday’s Washington Post, Speaker Pelosi’s delaying tactic is nothing short of brilliant . . . and for a couple of reasons. Wrote Professor Tribe: “As a tactical matter, it could strengthen Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) hand in bargaining over trial rules with McConnell because of McConnell’s and Trump’s urgent desire to get this whole business behind them. On a substantive level, it would be justified to withhold going forward with a Senate trial. Under the current circumstances, such a proceeding would fail to render a meaningful verdict of acquittal. It would also fail to inform the public, which has the right to know the truth about the conduct of its president.“

Responding to one revered Harvard Law professor with the words and thoughts of another, Fox News broadcast an op-ed by retired Professor Alan Dershowitz which originally appeared in Newsmax rebutting Professor Tribe and declaring that Pelosi’s delaying tactic is grossly unconstitutional: "It is difficult to imagine anything more unconstitutional, more violative of the intention of the Framers, more of a denial of basic due process and civil liberties, more unfair to the president and more likely to increase the current divisiveness among the American people. Put bluntly, it is hard to imagine a worse idea put forward by good people." 

Senators Graham and McConnell

It so happens that I am in total disagreement with Professor Dershowitz, and find myself wondering whatever happened to him; he used to be far more progressive in his legal reasoning. I also find myself in awe of Nancy Pelosi’s strategic acumen; the ease with which she maneuvers about the political chessboard is truly something to behold. If there is to be anything resembling a fair trial, it will necessitate Senators McConnell and Graham (and many of their colleagues) taking a step back, rereading the Constitution, and finding the courage to live up to the oaths they take. And while I do not for one moment believe our IMPOTUS (“Impeached President Of The United States”) is going to be found guilty, I, along with every fair-minded American, can at least hope for a semblance of even-handedness in the proceedings to come. Unless and until they can, I know that Mrs. Pelosi will continue holding on to the Articles of Impeachment. like any world-class strategist would. Let her tie McConnell et al in knots until they do the right thing. And may they come to understand just who it is they’re dealing with.

298 days until the presidential election.

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

Refusal and Recusal

By the end of the week, we can expect to see the POTUS impeached by a majority of the House of Representatives. It will undoubtedly be on a strict party-line basis, although there is a chance that a couple of Democrats may - I repeat may - cast their votes against impeachment. If so, it will neither be because they are enamored with ‘45 nor believe there is insufficient factual evidence to impeach, but rather because they are looking to save their political hide from an electoral tanning come 2020. From there, the bill of impeachment will move over to the United States Senate for trial. Said trial will be, according to the Constitution, presided over by Chief Justice Roberts. The prosecutors, chosen by Speaker Pelosi, will likely be Representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, both members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and both former prosecutors.

Prior to beginning the trial, each senator will, according to strictly dictated rules, swear an oath to carry out “impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws.”   Most lamentably, several Republican senators, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Senate Judiciary Chair Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Rand Paul (R-KY) have already publicly stated that they are steadfastly in support of the president, and absolutely refuse to cast a vote for conviction.  In other words, they see no purpose in pledging “impartial justice,”  which means that legally, they have announced their intention to suborn perjury.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell took that a step further, telling Fox News last week that he was working in “total coordination” with the White House.  Responding to leader McConnell’s perjurious statement, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler said that was like “the foreman of the jury saying he’s going to work hand in glove with the defense attorney.” This attitude amounts to a “violation of the oath that they’re about to take, and it’s a complete subversion of the constitutional scheme.” Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) went further, calling on McConnell to recuse himself from the Senate proceedings based on his Fox News remarks.  

Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s closest allies in Congress ever since he defeated Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College, also said that his mind was made up even before the process began. “I’m not trying to hide the fact that I have disdain for the accusations in the process,” Graham said Sunday on CBS’ Face the Nation. Speaking with CNN on Saturday, Graham further said that he wasn’t “trying to pretend to be a fair juror.” Graham predicted that impeachment “will die quickly” in the Senate and vowed to “do everything I can to make it die quickly.” It should be remembered that in 2015 and 2016, Graham referred to then candidate Trump as “a complete idiot,” and “a nut job,” and swore that under no circumstances would he ever vote for the New York real estate magnate for POTUS.

Speaking on CNN’s “State of the  Union” yesterday, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul told interviewer Jake Tapper  he doesn’t expect any Republicans in the House to vote in favor of impeachment and that he expects a “handful of Democrats” to vote against impeachment efforts. In terms of the Senate, he said he believes all Republicans will vote against convicting Trump and that they’ll likely be joined by two Democrats.  “I think what we’re seeing is this is a very partisan thing,” Paul told Tapper. “This is a disagreement. People on the Democrats’ side don’t like President Trump. They don’t like his demeanor, and so they’ve sort of decided to criminalize politics. But I don’t think it’s a good thing,” Paul added. “I don’t think it’s a good day for the country. I think it’s a sad day because I hope it doesn’t devolve into every president — like in different parts of Latin America — we either impeach or throw presidents into jail just because we don’t like their politics. I think that will really dumb down and destroy the country.”

Paul concluded by saying quite incorrectly, “This is a disagreement over policy and this is sort of an extension of politics, but this isn’t about the Constitution or the president breaking the Constitution.” 

Where Senator Paul - and Senators Graham and McConnell - most obviously err, is in contending that the House’s impeachment of ‘45 has nothing  to do with the Constitution; that it is simply because they don’t like him and are still as angry as a swarm of hornets over Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016.  How utterly inept and disingenuous. 

I have the feeling that  already, Republican strategists are plotting separate impeachment scenarios for Vice President Biden, Senators Sanders and Warren and Mayors Bloomberg and  Buttigieg - whoever may possibly defeat Donald Trump in November 2020.  As much as I fear that ‘45 may be reelected, what nauseates me the most is the thought that American politics will devolve in to 2- and 4-year clashes between Democrats and Republicans where nothing gets done; that the central focus is cutting down the other side to size.

There has been so much whittling away at the Constitution, political credibility and maturity that it now seems as if generations have passed since our leaders last acted  or worked with seriousness of purpose.  Our elections more closely resemble a turf war between vicious neighborhood gangs than serious political competition.  

I am of the strong opinion that those senators who have already announced their votes even before the first gavel is heard or first witness deposed should be brought up on charges of subornation of perjury. This is not a 1st Amendment “freedom of speech” issue.  It is, without question, a gross conflict of interest.  Senator McConnell: you should recuse yourself if for no other reason than the fact that your wife serves in 45’s Cabinet as Secretary of Transportation.  Senator Graham: you should listen to some of your early speeches and refuse to partake in the hearings.  Senator Paul: you must determine whether your first allegiance is to the law or to your fundraisers.  And in general, members of the Republican Party, you must acknowledge in public what you whisper behind closed doors.  The very future of this once grand country depends on  it.  

Ask yourself: how do I want history to remember me?

222 days until the election . . .

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

Ralph Waldo Emerson Is Turning Over in His Grave

If I am not mistaken, it was Ralph Waldo Emerson, that most American of all philosophers, who first noted “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Found in perhaps his most memorable essay, “Self Reliance,” Emerson (1803-1882), nowhere explained the difference between “foolish” and “wise” consistency. Nonetheless, it would seem that the “Father of American Transcendentalism” was warning future generations against those whose public pronouncements run counter to their private predilections; whose words would be at obvious odds with their often heartless deeds. Emerson would have had a field-day pointing out the utter inconsistency of those who today are publicly - and self-righteously - “pro-life,” but politically supportive of most everything which counters their oft-stated position. In matter of sad fact, they are misnamed: they are really “pro-birth.” Once the “pre-born” take their first breath, they are pretty much on their own . . .

The Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, which struck down a Texas statute banning abortion (thus effectively legalizing the procedure across the United States), was far more than a victory for women; it also created an issue which has served as both a 30-decibel storm warning and perhaps the most divisive political litmus test of the past 150 years.  Prior to Roe v. Wade, far, far fewer conservative and fundamentalist Christians participated in the political process than today. In truth, in pre-Roe times, many of their pastors, reverends and other assorted religious leaders thundered from thousands of pulpits that politics was the work of the devil. Then came the Roe decision, and secular political strategists discovered an untapped market, which they initially referred to as the “Moral Majority.” (I remember wearing a button bearing the slogan “The Moral Majority is Neither!”) Secular political strategists convinced several generations of the devout that they could enact God’s will - especially when it came to the “the pre-born” - if only they would lend their voices, votes and overall support to those who were running on the side of the Lord. And by the way, so the strategists informed them, God also favors low taxes for corporations, a generous oil depletion allowance, far, far fewer federal regulations, support of charter schools . . . the entire conservative agenda.  And by the way, “global warming” is lie perpetrated by those who do not believe in the word of the Lord . . .

But it all began with the divisive clash between the forces of morality (e.g. pro-life/pro-birth/anti-welfare/anti-science) and the forces of evil (e.g. pro-choice/pro-environment/anti/anti ”trickle-down” economics). Nearly a half-century after the Roe decision and all that it has wrought, the sides have become so case-hardened that one side will rarely - if ever - engage in civil debate with the other, let alone find an ounce of humanity, comity or moral consistency on the part of their political opponents. 

Protecting the lives and rights of the “pre-born” became so absolutely central to the politics espoused by the merchants of morality that they somehow convinced their customers that nothing else really mattered.  Poll after poll proves this point: so long as ‘45 (backed by the cacophonous "hallelujahs” of the Federalist Society) continues appointing anti-Roe judges to lifetime seats on the federal bench (where they will hold sway for the next 30-40 years), his utter lack of probity, humility  and humanity will not keep his largely white-Christian base from supporting him . . . from believing he’s the second coming of King Cyrus.  These people form the strongest, most consistent part of the Republican base . . . despite the fact that in  a 2019 survey, about six-in-ten U.S. adults (61%) said that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared with 38% who said it should be illegal all or most of the time.  

And yet, the past several years have seen state legislatures passing increasingly restrictive laws - banning abortions after a mere six weeks; limiting (and even eliminating) the number of abortion clinics in a state; threatening any doctor who performs an abortion with serving a maximum of 99 years in prison, and forcing women seeking an abortion for any reason (including incest or rape) to have to wait several days after initially appearing at a clinic.  Studies have shown that these laws - some of which have already been overturned in state courts (and now heading towards the Trump-appointed federal bench) have a far greater negative impact on poor, rural, non-white women than those who are largely white, urban and middle-class.  You had better believe that were, God forbid, the daughter of a far-right senator or representative become pregnant as a result of rape or incest, her family would find a way to terminate that pregnancy.  Oh yes, it’s still legal; I almost forgot. 

And now comes the most frightening law of them all: Ohio House Bill 413, known as the “abortion murder” bill, which carries language that appears to require doctors treating a woman who suffers an ectopic pregnancy to re-implant the fertilized egg in the patient’s uterus or face criminal charges.  The procedure required by this piece of legislation is both medically impossible and morally reprehensible.  If passed, it would mean that a state legislature is now in a position to tell a physician how to practice medicine or face a charge of murder.  In checking with several physicians whom I work with on an Institutional Review Board (IRB - a group of doctors, pharmacists, bio-engineers and lay specialists whose job it is to protect the rights and safety of subjects partaking in medical research) they all quickly (and firmly) said the same thing: “re-implanting a fertilized egg in a woman’s uterus is alchemy.  Period.”  And yet, there are enough “pro-birth” members of the Ohio legislature that the bill will likely be enacted. 

If I live to be 120 (the same age as Moses), I will never understand the inconsistency of some people; of how they can demand that the government stay away from regulating in any way, shape or form the air they breath, the water they drink or the guns they purchase - to give but three examples - and then turn  around and fervently support the government’s intrusion into our bodies, bedrooms or marriage canopies - to again name but three. Historically speaking, “morality by fiat” has always had a chilling effect on civil society.  What one does, says or believes within their church, shul or mosque - the religious dictates people follow within their own faith-based lives - must neither be ordained, transmuted nor demanded for people of different persuasions. To create a secular political identity out of the clay sectarian belief is both cynical and foolhardy - not to mention a foolish consistency that can easily tear apart a secular, democratic society.

Emerson taught a far younger America a lot about “small minds.”  I wonder what he’d say about our modern hobgoblins?

228 days until the 2020 election.

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

Maddeningly Inevitable . . . Frighteningly Unconscionable

Frankly speaking, I’m a bit surprised that the ugly, twisted specter of anti-Semitism has taken quite so long to reappear on the stage of impeachment. To me, it was all but inevitable that as the dramatis personæ of the tragedy entitled Trump v. Constitution of the United States became better known to the public, a certain twisted segment of America would once again claim that Jews - merciless, acquisitive, immoral Zionists - were behind the craven plot to overthrow the Chritian world.  This has been on my mind for quite some time; the question was not “will the age-old conspiracy reemerge from the shadows?” but rather, “when?”  

About two weeks ago - November 22 to be precise - Rick Wiles, a controversial right-wing pastor, and founder of TruNews, an online hate site, launched a virulently anti-Semitic attack on leading congressional Democrats, claiming that impeachment proceedings against POTUS amounted to a “Jew coup.” On his “True News” program, Wiles, putting Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff between the cross-hairs (“Just look at his eyes . . . you can tell he’s utterly demonic”) and warned:

“That’s the way the Jews work, they are deceivers, they plot, they lie, they do whatever they have to do to accomplish their political agenda. This ‘impeach Trump’ effort is a Jew coup and the American people better wake up to it really fast because this thing is moving now toward a vote in the House and then a trial in the Senate. We could have a trial before Christmas.

This country could be in civil war at Christmastime. Members of the U.S. military are going to have to take a stand just like they did in the 1860s with the Civil War. They are going to have to decide: are you fighting for the North or the South? People are going to be forced, possibly by this Christmas, to take a stand because of this Jew coup in the United States.

This is a coup led by Jews to overthrow the constitutionally elected president of the United States and it’s beyond removing Donald Trump, it’s removing you and me. That’s what’s at the heart of it. You have been taken over by a Jewish cabal.”

Wiles and his demented allies are scared witless by the roster of Jews “leading” or “involved in” the impeachment of the POTUS:

• Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): Chair, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

• Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY): Chair: House Judiciary

• Elliot Engel (D-NY) Chair: House Foreign Affairs

• Ted Deutch (D-FL) Chair: House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Terrorism

• Ted Deutch (D-FL) Chair: House Ethics Committee

• Steve Cohen (D-TN) Chair: House Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

• Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman: Director of European Affairs, National Security Council - witness

• Amb. Gordon Sondland: U.S. Ambassador to European Union - witness

• Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine

• Other Jewish members of the House Judiciary Committee include Steven Cohen (D-TN), Ted Deutch (D-FL) David Cicilline (D-RI), and Jaimie Raskin (D-MD)

• Other Jewish member of Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence: Elise Stefanik (R-NY)

Not surprisingly, many of those accusing Jews of belonging to an insidious, conspiratorial cabal bent on overthrowing the government, claim it is being financed by George Soros, a liberal Jewish billionaire. (These same anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists have also long believed that during the Holocaust, the then-teenage Soros was a Nazi collaborator.)

During her testimony before the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Dr. Fiona Hill, former deputy assistant to the president and senior director for Europe and Russia on the National Security Council staff, likened a right-wing narrative casting liberal Jewish billionaire George Soros as all-controlling to a notorious anti-Semitic forgery. The narrative that Soros is behind an array of evildoings “is the new Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” Hill said Thursday in hearings. “It’s an absolute outrage.”

Soros has become a bugbear for some right-wingers, who blame his liberal philanthropy for a number of ills, citing little evidence. Trump himself last year blamed Soros for an “invasion” of Central American migrants that never materialized. Even loony Texas Representative Louie Gohmert brought up the Soros-as-Nazi-collaborator canard while being interviewed on Fox News. Despite having been thoroughly discredited years ago, the Soros fabrication, like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, is a lie that will not die. 

Even as “classical” anti-Semitic memes and tropes are beginning to resurface with a vengeance, evangelical support for Israel - which they tend to refer to as “The Holy Land” - remains strong.  It is a fact that the largest pro-Israel group in America is not the overwhelmingly Jewish AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) but the overwhelmingly Evangelical “Christians United For Israel,” which was founded by the Pastor John Hagee in 2006.

Indeed, it is more than anomalous that some of the most fervently pro-Israel Christians can, at the same time, find such innate, conspiratorial evil in Jewish people themselves. But even here, a crack is beginning to appear. “Doc” Burkhart, Rick Wiles’ on-air co-host recently gave a call for listeners and viewers to repent for supporting Israel. Burkhart led his audience to confess their sin of standing with Israel: “Lord, I’m so sorry. I don’t how I was so deceived. I don’t how I was so bewitched by all of this,” he asks his viewers to pray. “I thought it was a good thing to support the people of Israel. I thought it was a good thing to help Israel. But now I see it’s just people using the name of Israel, people using the people of Israel in order to line their own pockets, in order to build their own kingdoms, in order to make themselves feel important.”

Burkhart/Wiles’ astonishingly foul heresy even has a name: “Replacement Theology,” which teaches its adherents and acolytes “Jesus, You are my Zion. Jesus, You are my Promised Land. Jesus, You are my Temple. Jesus, You are my Eternal Capitol, Lord.”

We live in an increasingly angry, maddening and dangerous world. That Jewish support for Israel has been called into question by those who see it as a portal to the Apocalypse and its Chosen People as agents of evil is frighteningly unconscionable.

חָזַק חָזַק וְנִתחַזֵּק

(Chazak chazak v’neetchazayk):

“Be strong, be Strong and We Shall Be Strengthened”

335 days until the presidential election

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

Proditomania & Other Issues

For every kind of nuttiness or fear, there is a precise term that fills the bill. Among the more fascinating fears are:

“Who stole my strawberries? And while we’re at it, why is everyone out to get me?”

• glossophobia: the fear of speaking in front of an audience (performance anxiety)

• aviophobia: the fear of flying

• nyctophobia: the fear of nighttime or darkness

• coulrophobia: Fear of clowns

• scoionophobia: the fear of school

• triskaidekaphoobia: the fear of the number thirteen

Looking for a single word meaning “the excessive desire to participate in war?” That would be polemania, which is derived from the Greek “polemo,” meaning “war.” How’s about “Lying or exaggerating to an abnormal extent?” That would be mythomania. Then there’s pseudomania, meaning “an Irrational predilection for lying,” typomania, “a craze for printing one’s lucubrations,” and the title of this week’s essay, proditomania, meaning “the feeling or belief that everyone is out to get you.”  Without question, these five manias have all found a home in the  mind of our current POTUS.  It’s akin to a reverse pathological version of Graft Versus Host Disease, wherein it’s the mind (instead of the body) which immunizes itself against (thus rejecting) a transfusion of otherwise psychologically healthy cells. 

For more than 2 years, psychiatrists, psychotherapists and neurobiologists have been analyzing ‘45’s psychological profile without benefit of interviews, clinical sessions or tests; ethically questionable to be sure, but nonetheless understandably ineluctable.  In March of this year, a group of 37 prominent analysts published The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, which provides valuable insights in DJT’s psychosocial pathology. Medical ethics aside, he possesses one of the most worrisome and potentially harmful psychological makeups of anyone who has occupied the office of President. Besides possessing a paranoiac personality, ‘45 likely suffers from “Narcissistic Personality Disorder,” the hallmarks of which include grandiosity, a lack of empathy for other people, and a need for admiration. People with this condition are frequently described as arrogant, self-centered, manipulative, and demanding. They may also have grandiose fantasies and may be convinced that they deserve special treatment.

Of course, ‘45 is not the first - nor undoubtedly the last - to be beset by complex psychological demons. According to a study by Jonathan Davidson of the Duke University Medical Center and colleagues, who reviewed biographical sources for the first 37 presidents (1791-1974), half of those men had been afflicted by mental illness—and 27% met those criteria while in office, something that could have clearly affected their ability to perform their jobs. Among those Davidson cited were:

• Abraham Lincoln, who suffered from what used to be called “melancholy” (depression or bi-polarity);

• Teddy Roosevelt, who exhibited many of the classic symptoms of both Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and bipolarity.

• William Howard Taft, who suffered from sleep apnea, which is associated with declines in cognitive functioning, and most famously,

• Ronald Reagan, who showed early signs of Alzheimer’s while still in office.

Of course it should go without saying that anyone who believes they have what it takes to be elected and then serve as POTUS has a larger-than-normal ego. This is definitely not a position for anyone who suffers from an inferiority complex . . . although it is possible that the former (ego-mania) can serve as overcompensation for the latter (inferiority complex). In medical terminology, an overdeveloped ego can be a sequela (a consequence) of deep-seated feelings of inferiority. (Or, as mom has said on more than one occasion: “It’s not that he suffers from an inferiority complex; he’s just plain inferior!”)

‘45’s proditomania – the obsessive belief that everyone is out to get him - is on display in a thousand different ways every day of the week.  It is this belief which leads him to accuse any media outlet or personality to be part and parcel of a vast conspiracy which he and his hard-core followers call “Fake News.”  It is his proditomaniac worldview - coupled with runaway narcissism - which gives him license to eviscerate  and dehumanize the opposition, all the while cloaking himself in a steely veil of virtue. Frequently, 45’s most inexplicable actions (and reactions) bring to mind a line from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: There are no rules in a knife fight.”

When it comes to ‘45’s credibility, there seems to be 3 unequal camps:

1. Those who refuse to believe or accept anything he says or claims;

2. Those who are more than willing to believe or accept anything he says or claims;

3. Those who no longer care.

I for one am squarely in the first camp . . . which bothers me greatly. For I would greatly prefer to have even a modicum of faith in the POTUS, his administration and those who serve not their party nor their own interests, but rather our country and its Constitution.

I find myself wondering what goes on in Boss Tweet’s mind when he finally lays his head on the pillow at the end of a day. Is he afflicted with own dishonesty . . . his own perfidy and imperfection? Or does he sleep like a baby, secure in the delusion that he is the smartest, most successful and healthiest person to ever occupy the Oval Office? Does he really, truly reach out to Morpheus, the ancient god of sleep and dreams, smiling at the thought of a second, third or even fourth term in office? Or is he tossing and turning, besieged by the pending nightmare of just how he’s going to get himself out of all the mayhem he himself has wrought?

Not quite 2 weeks ago, ‘45 made an unscheduled, unannounced visit to Walter Reed hospital for a medical checkup. Precisely what tests and/or procedures he underwent has yet to be made public. What we do know is that he is not as healthy as he claims: according to his “body mass index” (BMI) he is morbidly obese, exists on a diet largely made up of fast food and so-called “comfort foods,” and takes both a statin (Crestor) and a daily dose of aspirin . . . both of which are to stave off a future heart attack. And then, there are all those pesky psychological issues.

I find myself wondering if in the time it takes to fall asleep (meaning those nights he doesn’t take an Ambien tablet), he is setting in motion a plan to resign his office before the dreck hits the fan. Could it be that the unscheduled visit to Walter Reed was part of the strategy? Is it possible that someday soon he will announce that due to an unforeseen medical issue, he must, upon the advice of his medical team, turn over his office to Vice President Pence? Could this be his way of having to spend the remainder of his time in office facing a trial in the Senate and then losing reelection . . . thus being able to prove that he was, in the end of days, correct: they were out to get him.

Only time will tell . . . although I for one will continue to pray for his health.

342 days until the presidential election

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

The Revolving Door

Stephen Miller

As anyone with half a brain knows, access and egress to the Trump White House comes in the form of a revolving door. The list of those who have either resigned or been fired extends all the way from Foggy Bottom to Fredericksburg, Va. and from the West Wing to the West Coast. The list of the dismissed is a lengthy one. The reasons for their leaving - whether voluntarily or by fiat - vary and are occasionally even eyebrow-raising.  The latest to be fired - America’s Ambassador to the Ukraine Marie Louise "Masha" Yovanovitch - never got a reason for her dismissal.  Sneering at her to his 66 million Twitter followers, ‘45 informed them that “Wherever  Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad . . . . She started off in Somalia, how did that go?” Gee, I for one never fully realized how much political and strategic power a single ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary possesses; I must have been sleeping when they covered that subject in my diplomatic history class.

The roster of the rejected in Trumpland is both long and occasionally inexplicable.  What, for but one example, caused Anthony Scaramucci’s tenure as White House Communications Director to last a mere 6 days, the shortest tenure in American history?  (For those who are trivia buffs, the second shortest tenure belongs to Ronald Reagan’s Communication’s Director, Jack Koehler, who lasted in his post for 11 days back in March 1987.  The longest tenure belongs to FDR’s Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins - an amazing 12 years, 4 months.) It is true that Scaramucci was and is a world-class egomaniac with a mouth like the Okefenokee Swamp; then too, he is totally self-aware and has disproved F. Scott Fitzgerald’s epigram about there being “no second acts in America.”  

By far, employment-wise, the two greatest mysteries of the current administration are Senior Presidential Counselor Kellyanne Conway and Stephen Miller, the president’s Senior Adviser for Policy.  Of the former, one can be amazed that she still occupies her position if for no other reason than who she’s married to: George Conway, a conservative Harvard-trained attorney who spends a great deal of his time being a hostile thorn in the president’s side. The other day he likened his wife’s working for ‘45 to being a member of a cult. For his rhetorical efforts, Mr. Conway has been compared to Martha Mitchell, the wife of Richard M. Nixon’s attorney general, John Mitchell, and an open critic of the Nixon administration during the Watergate scandal.  And yet, Kellyanne still has her job.  

Of the latter, Stephen Miller, much has been written.  By now, most news junkies know of his early years, being raised in an  upper-middle class Jewish home in Santa Monica, California; of his early “conversion” to hardcore political conservatism and his years at Duke University, where he helped future white supremacist leader Richard Spencer raise funds and promote an immigration policy debate between between Peter Laufer, an open-borders activist and University of Oregon professor, and journalist Peter Brimelow, founder of the anti-immigration website VDARE.  

Prior to going to work for Donald Trump, Miller served as press secretary for former Minnesota Representative Michelle Bachmann and as an adviser to Alabama Senator (and future Attorney General) Jeff Sessions.  Miller signed on early with the Trump campaign, aligning himself with Steve Bannon on most political issues.  He traveled the country with the campaign, often acting as Trump’s “opening act.”  It was Miller - along with Bannon - who created the anti-immigration strategy which would become central to the 2016 presidential race.  He, more than anyone, created the anti-Muslim ban, the removing of refugee and immigrant children from their families, and keeping the administration from showing the public an internal study by the Department of Health and Human Services that found that refugees had a net positive effect on government revenues. Miller insisted that only the costs of refugees be publicized, not the revenues refugees bring in.  Then too, Miller - along with then-Senator Jeff Sessions - was largely responsible for creating and priming Trump’s obsession with building a wall on America’s Southern Border - the one that Mexico was going to pay for.

Stephen Miller is the great-grandchild of Jewish immigrants; people who came to the United States from Czarist Russia at the turn of the 20th century in order to escape murderous pogroms, state-sponsored anti-Antisemitism and the prospect of serving 25 years in the Czar’s army. Had Stephen Miller been a White House adviser back in 1903, his family would have been sent back to Europe, where they likely would have been exterminated by the Nazis years later. How in the world did Miller, who came from such a background and a family that prospered so greatly in a land which welcomed them with open arms, turn out to be such an anti-immigration hawk? How does a person reared in an atmosphere of progressive idealism and civility come to be a such a strident white nationalist?

MIller’s affinity for white nationalism has been thoroughly researched and documented through leaked emails. From what has been revealed - largely by the Southern Poverty Law Center - Stephen Miller really, truly believes that non-Nordic people possess lower IQs than Hispanics, Muslims and people of African descent; that they present a clear and present danger to the West. In sum, Miller wants America to look more like his home town of Santa Monica - rich and white. He is worse than an utter embarrassment to his family, his heritage and indeed, his country.

Of late though, various groups and Congressional caucuses have been gathering signatures and support, all demanding that Miller either be fired or resign his White House position. The chances of ‘45 ever firing him are somewhere between slim and none. The chances of him resigning are even less than that.

For those who refuse to sit back and groan in pain, there are petitions to be signed and steps to be taken. Among the places to go and add your name to the fight are:

1. MoveOn Petitions

2. Change.Org

3. The National Council of Jewish Women

4. The Action Network

5. Stephen Miller Must Go!

To paraphrase a line from Fiddler on the Roof: “May God bless and keep Stephen Miller . . . far away from us!”

The revolving door is right in front of you . . .

350 days until the next presidential election.

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

Some Thoughts on Veterans Day

Our father, Henry Ellis (Schimberg) Stone served in the Army Air Corps (the original name of the Air Force) for nearly six years. By the end of World War II, he had spent nearly 20% of his life in uniform. Dad (1915-2002) was billeted to India as part of the CBI (the China-India-Burma Theater), where he forecast weather trends for transport planes flying over some of the most treacherous terrain on the earth: “The Hump.” This was the name Allied pilots in the Second World War gave to the eastern end of the Himalayan Mountains over which they flew military transport aircraft from India to China. It was a deadly route along which thousands of pilots died or were gravely injured. Forecasting weather trends in this part of the world was a crucial job; one which Dad rarely - if ever - spoke of for the rest of his life.

Towards the end of his long and very well-lived life, Dad did tell us a little bit about his time in the CBI. I remember him telling us about the grinding poverty he witnessed in India (a place to which he never returned - even as a tourist); of the searing heat and the pressure of having to be as accurate as humanly possible in order to safeguard the lives of the pilots who daily disappeared into the haze, bound for China with their precious cargo. I also remember him telling us that he felt rather badly for all those men and women who were still talking about their war experiences nearly 70 years after its conclusion - as if it was the high-point of their lives. “You have to have some compassion for them,” he told us. “I know that my life was far more fascinating and challenging both before and after the war . . . “ Then too, he added, “ those who are still telling war stories after so many, many years are probably stretching the truth just a bit . . . to put it mildly.“  Dad, remembered by one and all as a “wondrously handsome gentleman,” was originally destined for - perhaps - for film stardom.  After serving his six years in the war, he realized that he would have to find another path to success. Instead of becoming a Hollywood heart throb, he became one of their favorite stockbrokers, introducing a generation to a new financial instrument: mutual funds. It was a match made in heaven.

Dad, who was not, in the norm, a philosophical or reflective sort, did tell us that the most positive thing about his years in the service, was meeting, working alongside - and bonding with - all sorts of people.  In many, many cases, he told us, he was the first Jew many of his comrades had ever met in the flesh.  And for him - a young man who had spent his formative years in Baltimore and Richmond, Virginia - it was the first time he had ever met corn-fed mid-Westerners, New England Yankees, Sooners, Arkansans and people from the rural north who were educated in one-room schoolhouses.  “In a way,” he recollected when in his mid-eighties, “one great byproduct of service was introducing Americans to one another; it’s much much harder to stereotype people you’ve actually lived, worked and shared life with . . . “

Growing up in the nineteen-fifties and sixties, a majority of our family friends - both men and women - saw some sort of service during the war.  Even mom worked for a spell at an Italian Prisoner of War camp at Ft. Scottsbluff in Western Nebraska, where 4,000 POWs worked the bean and sugar-beet fields.  To us, it just seemed normal that our parents and friends’ parents had served in the war . . . and then got back to the challenges of civilian life.  In other words, veterans were not other peoples’ fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters . . . they were ours.  That, of course, is no longer the case; most of us aren’t related to veterans.

Fast-forward a couple of generations and we find that more and more, people frequently don’t know their neighbors - let alone folks from different parts of the country or totally different backgrounds.  And what’s worse, through the “gift” of social media, ignorance-based stereotyping - frequently stoked by so-called “leaders” who should know better - has grabbed an awful lot of Americans by the collar and shaken them into high-walled, case-hardened opposing camps.  Our politics have become so impermeable, so hermetically-sealed, that today, where one stands is frequently the product of where one sits.  Partly, of course, it’s because we no longer look through the same eyes; mostly, however, it’s due to our no longer knowing one another; partisanship and political puerility have easily lapped what used to be known as “the commonweal,” viz, “that which is shared and beneficial for members of a group, a community or even a nation.”

As we observe Veterans Day - an annual commemoration established 100 years ago (and known until 1954 as “Armistice Day”)  - we give thanks to all those who have served (or still serve) this great nation in both war and in peace.  Some saw service in wars of necessity; others in wars of choice. We even knew people who helped build bridges, dams, libraries and parks during the Great Depression. Heretofore, millions were drafted or enlisted; for the past generation, they have all been volunteers. Unbeknownst to many, the Selective Service System is still in operation, and registration is still mandatory in most states for every male (and soon females) from age 18-26, though the last prosecution for non-registration was in January 1986. Its current director is Don Benton, who was appointed by President Donald Trump April 13, 2017.  Prior to this position, he served as the Trump campaign chair in Washington State.

In contemplating veterans of our collective past, present, and even future - of all they have meant to America and indeed, the world - I find myself pondering the nature of national service - of its importance in American civil life.  I hear the words of the late President Kennedy - himself a war hero: “Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.”  I wonder if American society would be any different - any more unified, tolerant and understanding, less divided and territorial - if, like past generations - we worked  together side by side  as opposed to standing apart; if we could once again commit ourselves to accomplishing common goals instead of standing  defiantly in our private corners, surrounded only by those with whom we agree.  If we could, in JFK’s awe-inspiring trope ask not what our country could do for us, but rather what we could do for our country. Would we be any better off? I think the answer is “yes.”

In short, I find myself on this Veterans Day contemplating the possible unifying value that National Service could offer this country and its citizens, residents, and refugees.  Congressman Charles Rangel, a New York Democrat who served in Congress from 1971-2017, submitted his first legislative proposal for a “Universal National Service Act” in 2003; his bill would have provided that, as early as June 2005, young men and women ages 18–26 could be called to service - and not just military service. It had two cosponsors and was voted down 402-2.  Rangel resubmitted different forms of his bill again in 2006, 2007, 2010, 2013 and 2017; it never saw the light of day.  Not too long ago, South Bend, Indiana Mayor - and Democratic presidential candidate - Pete Buttigieg, speaking to MSNBC’s Rachael Maddow (who, like Mayor Pete is a former Rhodes Scholar) spoke at length about how, in his estimation, a national public service program for all young adults could help unify Americans of different backgrounds.  "We really want to talk about the threat to social cohesion that helps characterize this presidency but also just this era," Mayor Pete told Ms. Maddow. "One thing we could do that would change that would be to make it — if not legally obligatory but certainly a social norm — that anybody, after they're 18, spends a year in national service."
Such a program should, in theory, appeal to both parties — the idealism speaking to Democrats, and the service component drawing in conservatives. Without question, if such a program were to be enacted, it would need to be bipartisan. If would unquestionably require a different Republican president or a Democratic president. 45’ is unlikely to ever call for such a program, anyway; his 2020 budget proposes to eliminate the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), the agency that runs AmeriCorps.  I for one urge every Democratic nominee for POTUS to make Mayor Pete’s proposal part of their campaigns and for the Democratic Party to make it a prominent plank in the 2020 election. The nuts and bolts of funding, creating (or reworking) an agency that combines the past efficiency of Selective Service and ongoing idealism of Americorps is doable; these are, after all just details. The hardest part is getting both politicians and citizens to understand and acknowledge that national service is a good and positive thing; that the nation need not be at war in order to benefit from national service.

Our parents, grandparents and great grandparents saved the world from fascism 75 years ago. It is daunting to realize that the vast, vast majority of those who accomplished this were children and young adults - at least by modern standards. (Hell’s bells: Dad was only 30 years old at war’s end and he was considered ancient!) If we can but take away the lesson of working together for national goals on this Veterans Day, we will have honored them in the best way possible . . . thereby helping to save ourselves, and getting to know and work with a vast slice of humanity.

I wish you all a meaningful, contemplative and energizing Veterans Day.

There are now 357 days to go until the presidential election.

 Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

To Boo or Not to Boo: That Is the Question

Like you, I am both pleased and thankful that American Special Forces took out Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the most wanted murderer on the planet. Although he undoubtedly will be replaced by yet another fanatic mastermind, for the moment Isis is both headless and flat broke.  In watching and listening to the president’s speech/press conference about al-Baghdadi’s demise, I  found myself comparing his presentation to that of President Obama at the time he announced the death of Osama bin Laden. Obama’s 1,383-word report took just under 9 minutes to deliver, and consisted of precisely 9 uses of the word “I” or “I’ve.”  It was anything but a “victory lap.”  By comparison, President Trump’s 7,728-word announcement - including a brief Q and A - lasted 48 minutes, 15 seconds, during which he used the words “I,” “I’ve,” “me” and “my” more than 125 times. 

(n.b. For what it’s worth, the picture above shows the ‘situation room’ during both the al-Baghdadi and bin Laden strikes. One is obviously posed - the president and his men are looking straight into the camera; in the other the president and his men and women are looking at a screen. In the top photo, neither the computer nor phone cables are plugged in to anything; that on the bottom shows a fully operational cyber table.)

One of the other major differences between Obama’s announcement regarding the death of bin Laden and Trump’s about al-Baghdadi was tonal: while the former’s was as solemn and matter-of-fact as a Yom Kippur confession, the other’s was far more akin to a victory lap - a rookie running back spiking the ball and receiving a 15-yard penalty for taunting the opposition. As the Washington Post’s Max Boot noted, “President Trump has a preternatural ability to turn any occasion, no matter how solemn or important, into a ridiculous, risible spectacle. . . . When he began to ad-lib about what happened near Idlib, Syria, he treated the world to his usual blend of braggadocio and bluster — dishonest and distasteful in equal measure.  

Among other things, ‘45 managed to insult Democratic congressional leaders by not informing them of the upcoming raid (although he did notify both Russia and Turkey) and offer a minute-by-minute account of al-Baghdadi’s final moments worthy of an obsessive compulsive.  The only problem with this accounting (“. . . he died like a coward . . . whimpering and crying and screaming all the way.”) was that there was no audio, so how did he know what Baghdadi was saying? When asked about this, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and Joint Chiefs of Staff chair Gen. Mark Milley pointedly refused to confirm those details.

One of the eeriest, most ear-scratching aspects of this past Sunday is what occurred that night . . . when the POTUS attended the World Series game between the hometown Washington Nationals and the American League champion Houston Astros: upon seeing ‘45 up on the stadium, Jumbotron, a sizable percentage of the fans booed him and shouted “LOCK HIM UP!!” over and again.

The morning after the boo-fest at Nationals Park MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and his wife and co-anchor Mika Brzezinski (who are by no means Trump supporters) said it was “un-American” and “disrespectful” for the crowd to have acted in the manner they did. Quickly, more than 10,000 tweets including the phrase “sorry Joe” began trending on Twitter as users defended the actions of onlookers at Nationals Park on Sunday night. “The misrule, cruelty and infantilism of this administration is such that some sense of an enduring ethos is actually redeemed when we the people openly express our contempt,” wrote author and TV writer David Simon. “Dissent is the most American thing there is -- and to get clean, we need as much as there is on display.”

Scarborough took to Twitter after the segment aired to defend himself against his critics.

“So let’s see if I’ve got this straight: When crowds chant 'Lock her up” toward Hillary, it is illiberal and anti-American. (I agree). But when crowds chant the same toward Trump, it is suddenly a fulsome exercise of sacred First Amendment rights. What hypocritical clowns,” he tweeted.

He added that those who “think that democracy is strengthened by calling for the arrest of political opponents” are as “ignorant and illiberal” as the president himself.

“Delete your account and read some civics,” Scarborough fired back. “Stop embarrassing yourself.”

And so, to boo or not to boo . . . that is the question. This is no simple thumbs up/thumbs down question. To me, it is a real challenge:

On the one hand, I myself have a deep and abiding respect for the office of the President. Indeed, over the past 230 years, it has been occupied by 44 men (Grover Cleveland having served 2 non-consecutive terms) whose backgrounds, personalities, accomplishments and shortcomings were as varied as the nation they led. And whether or not they be blue bloods or tailors, slave owners or abolitionists, professorial or plainspoken, they managed to share one common trait: a deep-seated respect for both the Constitution and the Office they held. And up until recently, this has been an utterly true statement of fact. Sadly, this statement of fact now contains an asterisk . . . which reads “*except for Donald J. Trump.“ For in his words and actions, his demeanor and psychological makeup, he has shown himself to lack that one telling trait which has bound all the nation’s chief executives together.

But one can blithely argue - and correctly so - that his asterisk represents the failure of the man himself, and not the office he holds. If one accepts this argument, then the boos and catcalls (“Lock Him Up!”) even if unintentionally directed at both the man and the office are, in my humble opinion, wrong.

On the other hand, one can say “Enough already! He’s besmirched the presidency, abused his power and turned the White House into just another Trump, Inc. subsidiary. He gets what he deserves!” Although one can certainly understand and perhaps even accept the emotional anger this response engenders, it pushes the swamp well beyond the Anacostia River and perfectly-named “Buzzard’s Point” all the way to America’s collective front porch. This response, although again, understandable, is tantamount to fighting stink with stench, inhumanity with incivility. 

So what are we to do?  To boo or not to boo . . . that is the question.

Personally, I would never join with those shouting “LOCK HIM UP!! LOCK HIM UP!!”  It is both a waste of time and a further degradation of the office.  Seems to me we are better off using our energy to VOTE HIM OUT.  Then too, perhaps we can take chapter out of the book of the sixties’ protests.  I remember a day long ago when then-California Governor Ronald Reagan came to a meeting of the university Board of Regents on campus.  Now mind you, this was at the height of the anti-war, anti-draft  “Don’t trust anyone over the age of 30” era.  And so, when the governor entered the campus, we formed two long, long lines of greeting . . . a cortege of complaint.  As he entered the line, likely wondering if he were about to be screamed at, pelted with eggs or what have you, a unique form of protest ensued: we all, one by one, turned our backs on him, thereby forcing the Governor of California to cross the quadrangle surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of silent backsides.  We opted for silent humiliation in lieu of cacophonous insult.

What are your thoughts?

To boo or not to boo . . . please share your answer.

378 days until the next election.

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone