So Cal Redux

When I was a kid I went to San Diego a few times with my dad and sister. We have a picture of us on a fiberglass Shamu, pretending to hold on as the orca breaches in front of the backdrop.

Besides SeaWorld, the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park were favorites, as well, visited multiple times. Then, once, in high school or late middle school, we went down there with my mom. That trip focused on the actual historic downtown a bit more. But we still went to the Wild Animal Park (now called the Safari Park) and ate our way through the exhibits. ("Look! A giraffe!" "Look! Nachos!")

Two summers ago in 2016 my sister and I went back to San Diego, since we'd not been in at least sixteen years or so. We went to the Zoo and Safari Park together (we certainly wouldn't support SeaWorld anymore), and I went to the Balboa Park Museums, which I only vaguely remembered from the visit with mom.

So when my dad turned 75 this year, and wanted to return to San Diego, we made plans. Having been recently as an adult it was all gravy to me. We decided to go to the Safari Park (we got to feed a giraffe and a greater one horned rhino as in 2016) and the Balboa Park museums (the Fleet Science Center was lousy, but the Natural History Museum across the way was neat), as well as the Cabrillo National Monument - one of the most visited in the United States, and a locale I'd not ever been to, but which my dad had when he was stationed there for the Navy.

San Diego was nice in November. We ate at good restaurants, and the not-too-distant memories from a couple of years prior were strengthened and more firmly set.

From there we went on to Los Angeles, to see the Getty. I'd not been to this museum since 2010, and my father hadn't seen it since its opening. It was a full and very pleasant day. The collection was as or more excellent than I had remembered, and I was introduced to some interesting new artists.

Similarly, last weekend, I went with my girlfriend to Hearst Castle, in San Simeon. It was my fourth trip to the estate, having gone twice as a kid, but much had changed since my most-recent visit, that same summer of 2010. That was the summer I first explored Los Angeles, and then took a trip up Highway 1. It was a romantic trip - of a relationship that was hollowing out from within. We had seen the Getty, went up to Hearst Castle, and saw the Monterey Bay Aquarium. There, too, that trip stuck out - for until I moved down here last year, that drive up the coast, seven years prior, had, like Hearst Castle, been the first time I'd been to Monterey since I was a young child. My adult views of these places were linked to that lost relationship.

All three stops of that trip have now been recreated - the initial touring around a Los Angeles I did not then know (which began a generally annual tradition of visits since), the stop at Hearst Castle and seeing the Aquarium. And of course, the final destination of that road trip, of Berkeley, Marin, and San Francisco - the part of the story I revisited and rewrote first, easiest, and most thoroughly, upon returning to California in 2014.

Combined with San Diego, the last two weeks have been significant for memory and nostalgia. Rewriting a city's past from childhood. Creating fresher, bolder memories with my new girlfriend of a place I last went with my ex-girlfriend. At Hearst Castle we even went and saw elephant seals - creatures I've not bothered about since I was very young, and would see in the Bay Area at Ano Nuevo. Monterey is my new home, and likely will be for some time - no longer a stop on Highway 1, or a drive down to the Aquarium with my mom, looking at the eucalyptus trees on Route 156.

Nor is the Getty a place I went once when I was 24, with my girlfriend and the guy she would, in just over a year, be dating instead of me. While those memories will always remain, this trip brought new ones, invigorating the sounds and sights of the place with my sister and my father, now 75, and sunset glows which, if I witnessed them then, I did not bother to record, being more interested in the pedantic self-important conversations of young adulthood, debating the distinctions between "art" and "craft" and other such things that matter. I was genuinely happy, then, but the inevitable crumble of that romance subsequently tinted those places for me with sepia tones of regret and loss.

I'm glad for the change of all of this. It is pleasant to know that I can balance out that time of my life with happier and richer memories of my recent-present. As Didion once said, "I think we are well-advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not." So I give a nod to my former 24-year-old self, and move on through the galleries suffused with the warm orange hues of now.

Review: "These Truths: A History of the United States" by Jill Lepore

Every so often a one-volume U.S. history book comes along that's important. "In 1834, when the nation was barely more than a half-century old" George Bancroft wrote History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent to the Present. It begins a continual process of seriously telling, and retelling, America's history. Bancroft's pioneering work has such important stories in it as that of John Stark, trapper:

"danger lowered from the forest on the whole American frontier. In the early summer of 1752, John Stark, of New Hampshire, as fearless a young forester as ever bivouacked in the wilderness, was trapping beaver along the clear brooks of his native highlands, when a party of St. Francis Indians stole upon his steps, and scalped one of his companions. He himself, by courage and good humor, won the love of his captors; their tribe saluted him as a young chief, and cherished him with hearty kindness; his Indian master, accepting a ransom, restored him to his country."

The "St. Francis Indians", by the way, were the Abenaki.

Stark, later a British officer in the Seven Years War, is not a particularly important American hero, his story not actually all that memorable. As the country grew in size and age, such anecdotes had to be left out - there simply was not room enough for them. But this is what historians do - they select what is worthy of inclusion, and what is not.

Jill Lepore, professor of History at Harvard, has created an ambitious one volume history, which, I think, is important. It is an account for our times, post-2016, and tries to learn from the mistakes of so many one-volume accounts that came before. Early US histories have the same three basic problems:

1) Under-representing women
2) Under-representing African Americans
3) Under-representing indigenous peoples

Racism often mired accounts of the latter two, and patriarchal blindness the former. So in 1980, when Howard Zinn published his watershed A People's History of the United States, and James Loewen followed in 1995 with the now-classic Lies My Teacher Told Me, academia corrected a 150 year-old problem, passed down from Bancroft.

America's history is not just the history of white males in power, winning wars, and making laws. And, as marvelous as Frederick Douglass was, or Elizabeth Cady Stanton, or Geronimo, tokenism was not the way to present the true history of the United States. By the mid-1990s textbooks across the country reflected the actual diversity of the nation, and did not whitewash or gloss over slavery, genocide, internment, and our fuller, more complex, legacy. Compare that choice to a section from an old US History textbook I own, Scudder's History of the United States, published in 1884 (just after Garfield's assassination):

"For the most part the slaves were an idle, easy-going people. They were affectionate and warmly attached to their masters and mistresses if these were kind to them. They had little thoughts of anything beyond eating and sleeping and playing. They had their holidays, and when Christmas came they flocked to the great house to receive their presents."

Remember, this was written after Reconstruction. John Brown, in Scudder's work - by no means a minor text in the annals of American textbooks - is dealt with as a curiosity, an odd man given his two paragraphs. Zinn and Loewen clearly had a lot to fix - and did so admirably. But history is not static, and as soon as it goes to press, an historical account is out of date. The recent times have been wanting for a new historical reckoning, one to match our moment.

Lepore's work does this. It expertly traces the threads most pertinent to explaining how we got to where we are today. Its scope is political - do not expect to find Louis Armstrong, Samuel Colt, or John Stark in this book. Her narrative tackles the main questions which have bedeviled the nation since before it was one: How can democracy work most effectively? Who gets to be a citizen - or even a person?, and What role does information, and technology, play in all this?

That said, she has two particularly odd omissions. Lepore works through definitions of citizenship which include Asian immigration, for example, from the Gold Rush to Korematsu. She plots the parallel course of one of George Washington's runaway slaves, Harry Washington, on his escape to Canada, and eventual course to Africa. The women's rights movement, with all of its pre-Progressive false starts and failures, is carefully traced, including, again in parallel, Benjamin Franklin's sister, Jane.

But indigenous peoples, who have an obvious connection to questions of identity and citizenship, are left out. Slaves, women, and other typically forgotten groups (pre-Zinn) get plenty of pages. John Brown's place has moved, in These Truths, from Scudder's curiosity, to multiple pages of in-depth analysis. And judiciously placed minor characters are given a chance to speak, as well, from 18th century free-speech advocate John Peter Zenger, to Hawaiian Representative Patsy Mink.

But nowhere does Tecumseh get a mention. Nor Sitting Bull. Geronimo is referenced in a passing sentence regarding the Dawes Act - which set up the assimilation and reservation system. Indeed, even the Trail of Tears, which Lepore spends one page on, quotes instead General Winifield Scott, but gives no voice to the leaders of the Cherokee, beyond an anonymous printed statement of their case. John Ross and John Ridge, major players in that tragic event, don't get to speak for themselves, or debate their role in America, as Lepore allows women, slaves, and others to do. The most important act after creating reservations was Coolidge's Indian Citizenship Act, in 1924, which made Native Americans citizens, instead of the old Constitutional distinction of "Indians, not taxed". It is nowhere mentioned.

This is the first odd omission, then, and the most egregious, in light of her stated aims. To write a work about citizenship and jump from Powhatan and Metacom, across centuries to the Trail of Tears, and then to Dawes, and finally one sentence on the American Indian Movement, jumping in a bound from Geronimo to the 1970s, is, at best, an inexcusable oversight, and at worst a conscious decision to exclude native peoples in the reckoning of America.

Second, the word "gerrymander" makes no appearance in her work. The choice, in 1911, called the Apportionment Act, which set the number of Congressmen at 435, when the country was 1/3 the size it is today, is also never mentioned - despite leading to an increasingly disproportionate House of Representatives. The direct election of Senators is mentioned in passing in one sentence: along with the presidential primary, the Federal Reserve, and Prohibition. This is peculiar, since, as the work goes on, the focus of the third and fourth sections, covering Reconstruction until present, serve as a long crescendo of increased polarization.

George Gallup and Campaigns Inc., Phyllis Schlafly and Thurgood Marshall, Joseph Pulitzer and Roger Ailes: they all get their time in the sun exposing how we became so polarized, and dysfunctional. How "the people" turned into manipulable "masses". But there are other, very significant issues beyond Lepore's main concerns of polling, political campaign machinery, social media, and the trend of aligning parties to ideologies (guns and abortion in particular). Voter repression, in Lepore's world, has no place or role after the Voting Rights Act. Trayvon Martin gets the ink he deserves - but I question if he deserves more page space than the Citizens United decision, which is allowed just half of a half-page paragraph.

These are two significant omissions: first, the rights, citizenship, and personhood of indigenous peoples, and second, the more systemic attempts by conservatives in the Republican Party to suppress voters through gerrymandering, voter ID laws, Super PACs, and the like. (Lepore addresses court-packing, but that is only one part of the story.) The omissions come together in a particularly timely, and poignant way:

On October 9th, the Supreme Court declined intervening (ruling 6-2, with Kagan and Ginsburg dissenting) in a case called Brakebill v. Jaeger, thereby stating that many, if not most, Native Americans can't vote in North Dakota. The reason is a voter ID law, which requires a street address. Unfortunately, for the tens of thousands of indigenous people who live on reservations, they have PO boxes - not street addresses.

This is not an academic concern, since the Senator of the state up for reelection, Heidi Heitkamp, is a Democrat in a state where her only hope for keeping her seat is with Native American turnout. And the Senate currently is 49 Democrats to 51 Republicans. Yes - a conservative court is a part of this, but this is a perfect example of why the threads of the story Lepore left out were actually quite important.

Beyond these omissions, though, the work is fascinating, and worth a read. At just about 800 pages, the last section, from 1945 to present, covers 270 of those pages. The first section, from the three centuries of 1492 to 1799, covers a mere 150. Acceleration is in the background and foreground of the work, as technology and population become more relentless drivers of both change in the electorate, and change in our politics. These Truths feels like a real sprint at the end, but the dizzying pace can be said to honestly reflect a dizzying time.

Finally, from the New York Times book review, I quote Andrew Sullivan at length, lamenting Lepore's New Yorker magazine style, and sometimes painful writing:

"There are moments, however, when you wince at the purple prose. “The Republic was spreading like ferns on the floor of a forest.” Dred Scott was “suffering from tuberculosis, a slow sickness, a constitutional weakening, as relentless as the disease that wracked the nation itself. Frederick Douglass watched, and looked for a cure, an end to suffering. … But it was as if the nation, like Oedipus of Thebes, had seen that in its origins lay a curse, and had gouged out its own eyes.” Oof. The last two paragraphs of the book amount to one of the most excruciating extended metaphors — yes, the ship of state! — I have ever had the misfortune to struggle through."

I also winced at the Epilogue's 'ship of state' because it's so godawful, however, like Sullivan, I concur that overall the pros outweigh the cons:

"But these are quibbles. We need this book. Its reach is long, its narrative fresh and the arc of its account sobering to say the least. This is not Whig history. It is a classic tale of a unique country’s astonishing rise and just-as-inevitable fall."

Indeed, the ending is very dark. Referring to 2016, the book closes with these lines (spoliers!):

"The election had nearly rent the nation in two. It had stoked fears, incited hatreds, and sown doubts about American leadership in the world, and the future of democracy itself. But remorse would wait for another day. And so would a remedy."

Recommendation: Go read this book.

Rock Class of 19

It's a good time of year. QI is back on, for it's 16th season. The Nobel Prizes were last week. Midterms are coming up in a month, with a chance to change the country through a nonviolent revolution we take for granted every two years called 'elections'.

And, of course, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has announced its potential 2019 inductees:

Def Leppard
Devo
Janet Jackson
John Prine
Kraftwerk
LL Cool J
MC5
Radiohead
Rage Against the Machine
Roxy Music
Stevie Nicks
The Cure
Todd Rundgren
Rufus & Chaka Khan
The Zombies

So. First off, great list. Five acts are added annually. Here are my rankings, some of which I've rooted for for a decade now.

Best Options:

Janet Jackson
Kraftwerk
Radiohead
Roxy Music
The Zombies

Have you ever seen someone more deserving?

The other great choices:

Def Leppard - I admittedly am not a fan, but I totally support their inclusion.
LL Cool J - I mean, with the other 80s hiphop acts in there, it's hard to say he should be left out.
Rage Against the Machine - Like Def Leppard, this is a genre the RRHoF needs to improve on.
Stevie Nicks - More women in the Hall would be good, yes. Especially a double inductee.
Todd Rundgren - Underappreciated, perhaps, for a very skilled musician.

Knock you out?

Good picks:

Devo - Why not? I'm not sure how innovative they were (and not silly), but I can get behind them.
John Prine - Not a fan, but I acknowledge he should probably be in there.
The Cure - I would not be disappointed at all if they make it.

...Sure.

Bleh:

MC5 - I just don't like these guys, but clearly someone at the Hall wants them in, and keeps putting them up year after year. But even they'd still be better than other perennial nominee...
Rufus & Chaka Khan - The. Worst.

"Stop trying to make 'fetch' these two crappy bands happen."

If any of these bands deserve entry, in your opinion, go over to their website and vote. You can vote once a day between now and the close of the nomination period. Currently, near the end of day one, Stevie Nicks leads, followed by Def Leppard, The Cure, The Zombies (yay!), and Radiohead. Each group has a full bio and, new this year (?) curated playlists to listen to.

Essential Rock Singles

It's Nobel Prize week! But since they are being garbage (no Lit prize until 2019...) I am going to turn my focus elsewhere. 

In 2018 a new category of ‘singles’ was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Some of the songs that changed rock, after all, were released by effective one-hit wonders, and this category recognizes those artists for their important songs.

The initial inductees were all solid, essentially indisputable:

·         Link Wray - "Rumble"

·         The Kingsmen - "Louie Louie"

·         Chubby Checker - "The Twist"

·         Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats - "Rocket 88"

·         Steppenwolf - "Born to Be Wild"

·         Procol Harum - "A Whiter Shade of Pale"

The only one I think is odd is Steppenwolf. Sure, “Magic Carpet Ride” isn’t as famous, of course, but I could see them being inducted as Performers – unlike the Kingsmen, Chubby Checker, or Procol Harum who really are known for a single track.

For the class of 2019 I have the following suggestions to choose from:

·         Don McLean – “American Pie”

·         Thin Lizzy – “The Boys Are Back in Town”

·         Kansas – “Carry on My Wayward Son”

·         Blue Oyster Cult – “Don’t Fear the Reaper”

·         Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels – “Devil with a Blue Dress On”

·         The Blossoms (initial credit to The Crystals) – “He’s a Rebel”

·         The Bobby Fuller Four – “I Fought the Law”

·         Gloria Gaynor – “I Will Survive”

·         Strawberry Alarm Clock – “Incense and Peppermints”

·         The Five Satins – “In the Still of the Nite”

·         Little Eva – “The Loco-Motion”

·         Boston – “More Than a Feeling”

·         The Chantays – “Pipeline”

·         Afrika Bambaataa – “Planet Rock”

·         Gil Scott Heron – “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”

·         Norman Greenbaum – “Spirit in the Sky”

·         Ben E. King – “Stand By Me”

·         Rick James – “Super Freak”

·         Edwin Starr – “War”

·         Village People – “Y.M.C.A.”

Now there are others, but I am hopeful they will be added as performers (I mean, the Hall of Fame says it’s possible to get inducted first as a single and later as a performer…but it just seems unlikely). Could you add Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” to the list? Of course. Same goes for someone like Dick Dale with “Misirlou”, The Modern Lovers with “Road Runner”, and Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain”. But all, in my opinion, would be worthy Performer inductees.

Anyway, I’ll be excited to see which ones, if any of my 20 suggestions, make it.

Little Black Classics

Just received a gift of the Little Black Classics released by the UK Penguin publishers. It's a complete set of 80 volumes, consisting of fifty-ish pages each. They range from complete short works (essays, short stories) to excerpts and selections of longer pieces.

While I am familiar with most of the authors, the particular shorter works are often ones I've not read. Indeed, 62 I'd not read upon receipt of the collection. (For example, I've read many works by Matsuo Basho, but not these particular haiku; or, having read various works by Swift, from Gulliver's Travels to the Tale of the Tub, but not the Little Black Classics' choice of A Short View of the State of Ireland.) But when you instead look just at the authors I'd not ever read, it becomes a much shorter list, of only 28 (with two anonymous works):

Gerard Manley Hopkins
The Gunnlaugs Saga
Pu Songling
Baltasar Gracian
Guy de Maupassant
Suetonius
Apollonious
Petronious
Johann Peter Hebel
Henry Mayhew
Hafez
Thomas Nashe
Mary Kingsley
Elizabeth Gaskell
Nikolay Leskov
C.P. Cavafy
Samuel Pepys
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (I mean, I'm familiar with his operas and such, but not his non-musical writings)
Christina Rosetti
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
Giorgio Vasari
Shen Fu
Richard Hakluyt
Catullus
Katherine Mansfield
Sappho
Basavanna, Devara Daismayya, Mahadeviyakka, and Allama Prabhu
Dhammapada

So I'm excited to start in on the collection. I read the Hopkins already (and greatly enjoyed it) as well as a volume containing two short works by Ruskin, which were pretty good. At the moment reading the Gracian volume - a Spanish Jesuit's maxims and aphorisms from the 1600s.

All in all a fun new project to carry out. The Penguin Great Ideas was very beneficial, and I'm hoping this will be as well.

US History Textbook Chapters

“If you could write your own ‘US History’ textbook (for junior yr high schoolers), what would the title be? And what would the chapter titles be? Bonus points if you can limit yourself to 20 chapters.”

I was asked this by a fellow teacher on Facebook, and so I decided to think about it.

Some considerations: The U.S. population in 1820 was approximately 10 million people. By 1920 it was well over 100 million. As such my US History textbook is going to focus on the 20^th century more, as the 1800s will, increasingly, be seen as a prelude to the American Century...

Without further ado, limited to 20 chapters as requested, here’s what I’ve got:

Chapter One – “Kanien'keha:ka”[i] Early Native American Societies: Eastern Groups

·         Migration to North America, Mound building societies, Prominent societies east of the Mississippi

Chapter Two – “T’áá Diné”[ii] Native American Societies: Western Groups

·         Ancient Pueblo, Prominent societies west of the Mississippi

Chapter Three – “Con Cien Hombres”[iii] Spanish and French Colonialism: 1492-1776

·         Columbus, Spanish Florida and the Mission system, French trappers and exploring the interior

Chapter Four – “New Albion”[iv] British Colonialism: 1585-1776

·         Drake, Roanoke, and Jamestown, Origins of slavery, Original Thirteen Colonies

Chapter Five – “We Hold These Truths to Be Self Evident”[v] The Seven Years War and American Revolution

·         Seven Years War, Founders and discontent, Revolution and Articles of Confederation

Chapter Six – “The Right of People to Make and Alter their Constitutions of Government”[vi] The Constitution and New Nation

·         Constitutional basics, Washington, Adams, and Jefferson Administrations, War of 1812

Chapter Seven – “A World of Country Here to Settle”[vii] Continued Native American Wars and War with Mexico

·         Expanding past Appalachia, Tecumseh, Jackson and the Trail of Tears, Mexican American War

Chapter Eight – “Build Therefore Your Own World”[viii] Northern and Southern Society 1840-1860

·         Plantation life and changing slavery attitudes, Transcendentalism, Early Northern industrialization

Chapter Nine – “A House Divided”[ix] Civil War

·         Lincoln, Lead up and secession, Course of the War, Lincoln’s assassination

Chapter Ten – “Many of My Race …Sleep in the Countless Graves of the South”[x] Reconstruction

·         Bringing Confederate states back, New black rights and representation, Transcontinental railroad, Initial Asian immigration, Collapse of Reconstruction efforts

Chapter Eleven – “Once I Moved About Like the Wind”[xi] Modern East and Wild West: 1880-1900

·         Continued Native American Wars and reservation system, Technological advancements, Gilded Age society

Chapter Twelve – “Trade Is Brisk and Money Plenty”[xii] Turn of the Century

·         Spanish American War, European immigration culture, 1800s Women’s movements

Chapter Thirteen – “A Bayonet Sticking in His Side”[xiii] Progressive Ideals and the Horror of War

·         Progressive Era and Roosevelt, The Labor movement, Successful Women’s Rights, America’s role in World War One

Chapter Fourteen – “Nothing but Blue Skies from Now On”[xiv] High Times and the Depression: 1920s and 1930s

·         Technology and culture, Harlem Renaissance and Klan resurgence, Why the Depression happened, Dust Bowl, Roosevelt’s New Deal

Chapter Fifteen – “The Eyes of the World Are Upon You”[xv] World War Two

·         Causes of WWII, Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima, Postwar treaties and founding of the United Nations

Chapter Sixteen – “There Is a Misty Plot Afoot”[xvi] Early Cold War: 1945 to 1960

·         Causes of Cold War, Korean War, 1950s suburbia and Red Scare

Chapter Seventeen – “Moral Means to Preserve Immoral Ends”[xvii] Civil Rights and Counterculture

·         Civil Rights from WWII to Voting Rights Act,  New technologies, 1950s and early 1960s countercultures

Chapter Eighteen – “In Which…the Fruits of Victory Would be Ashes in Our Mouth”[xviii] Vietnam and Proxy Wars

·         Why America got involved and backlash, Vietnam War from 1950s – 1970s, Significant proxy wars of the 1950s-70s

Chapter Nineteen – “If I was Writing the Bill of Rights Now…”[xix] Political Realignment: 1972-1992

·         Reactions to new Democratic Party: Nixon’s Southern Strategy and Watergate, Cultural attitudes changing – women's lib, gay rights, etc., Reagan Era, Bush and end of the Cold War

Chapter Twenty – “When the World Stands Together as One”[xx] Globalism? 1992-Present

·         Peace movements of the 90s and America as Superpower, Digital revolution, 9/11 and Bush Era, Obama v. Trump Doctrines

---

[i] Mohawk word for ‘Mohawk’ (People of flint)

[ii] Navajo word for ‘Navajo’

[iii] From the journals of Columbus: “With a hundred men I could rule them as I please.”

[iv] Sir Francis’ Drake term for California

[v] From Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence

[vi] From Washington’s Farewell Address: “The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government.”

[vii] From Davy Crockett: “I must say as to what I have seen of Texas, it is the garden spot of the world. The best land & best prospects for health I ever saw is here, and I do believe it is a fortune to any man to come here. There is a world of country to settle.”

[viii] From Emerson’s essay ‘Nature’

[ix] From the Lincoln Douglass debates: “A house divided against itself, cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided.”

[x] Senator Hiram Revels: “Many of my race, the representatives of these men on the field of battle, sleep in the countless graves of the South.”

[xi] Geronimo

[xii] From Mark Twain: “A crowded police docket is the surest of all signs that trade is brisk and money plenty.”

[xiii] Lyric by Pete Seeger for the Almanac Singers’ ‘Strange Death of John Doe’:

I'll sing you a song and it's not very long
It's about a young man who never did wrong;
Suddenly he died one day
The reason why, no one would say
He was tall and long and his arms were strong
And this is the strange part of my song;
He was always well from foot to head
And then one day they found him dead
They found him dead so I've been told
His eyes were closed, his heart was cold;
Only one clue to why he died -
A bayonet sticking in his side

[xiv] Lyric by Irving Berlin ‘Blue Skies’: “Blue days, all of them gone. Nothing but blue skies from now on.”

[xv] From Eisenhower’s D-Day speech to the troops: “Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force: You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hope and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.”

[xvi] From Miller’s ‘The Crucible’: “There is a misty plot afoot so subtle we should be criminal to cling to old respects and ancient friendships.”

[xvii] From King’s ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’: “But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.”

[xviii] From Kennedy’s Cuban Missile Crisis speech: “We will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of a worldwide nuclear war in which even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth — but neither shall we shrink from that risk any time it must be faced.”

[xix] From Warren Burger: “If I were writing the Bill of Rights now there wouldn’t be any such thing as the Second Amendment.”

[xx] From Obama’s Nobel Lecture: “Those regimes that break the rules must be held accountable. Sanctions must exact a real price. Intransigence must be met with increased pressure – and such pressure exists only when the world stands together as one.”

Voting Against My Interests

I was having a conversation with someone who isn't really into politics. They had a busy life (due to super long days at work - not brunch parties, partying, and beach getaways) so politics had remained peripheral. Being only partially informed, and aware of the fact, they didn't feel comfortable engaging in what they recognized were conversations that benefited from an up to speed understanding. But they wanted to know more. On Facebook I had recently written the following, which had caught their attention:


We teach middle schoolers not to be bystanders because bystanders make the situation worse: by not intervening they condone the action, and embolden the aggressors against the victims, or empower others not to act. From a website on the topic, aimed at young readers:

"The word bystander is one that you have probably heard before. It is used to describe people who see bullying happening, but do nothing to try and stop it. It is important to remember that these people are not usually unkind. In fact, everyone has been a bystander at some point.
Most of the time, the reason why people don't report bullying is simply because they do not know how to, or don't realize just how bad bullying is. They are also often scared of the bully, and fear they will end up as a target.
It is important to remember that you do not have to face the bully alone, as most people don't like bullying. Share this information with your friends, and stand together to put a stop to bullying once and for all."

People who say they are "not into politics" and accordingly fail to act in light of crisis - you realize you are bystanders, right? I mean, if we can get middle school students to understand that you can't stay quiet on the sidelines, why then, when it comes to political aggression, can't adults be held to the same standard as eleven year-olds? Tuning out politics is like not making eye contact with the victim being harassed on the train, or walking by the person slumped over on the sidewalk. Easy to do, and tempting, but it emboldens others to avoid confrontation as well.

If you've been a "political bystander" in the past: no judgement. As it says above - we all have been a type of bystander at one time or another. But please consider getting involved in the 2018 midterm election. This is actually *easier* than confronting the sketchy guy on the bus - you're just casting an anonymous ballot that can help alleviate pain for millions of people, including perhaps yourself.

The choice not to get involved, though, carries the moral burden of having turned a blind eye to that suffering: The babies separated from their mothers. The citizens deported despite being born on American soil. The citizens whose island was left without power, or adequate federal response, for a year. The environmental damage that effects every single one of us. The deterioration of our education system that will devastate a generation unless reversed quickly. The systematic disenfranchising of American POC. The tax plan that will make it harder over the next decade for middle class families to put food on the table, and increase paycheck-to-paycheck living. The erosion of a free press that endangers the lives of journalists, like the five workers at a Maryland newspaper who were shot dead just a few months ago. The protesters who are risking their lives, and dying, to stand up to *white supremacy and fascism* when on display in places like Charlottesville - something we all used to take for granted as being abhorrent to civilized values.

Choosing to sit this midterm election out, to be a bystander, is an *active* choice to condone the continuation of this culture, and the pain it has wrought - and further encourage this suffering with your silent mandate. Don't be a bystander. Have the moral fortitude of a sixth grader.

So that was the context. Someone was asking me, identifying as a sort of moderate who preferred avoiding labels, about politics, and wanted to know more.

My statement was simple: I support human dignity and expansion of rights, minimizing suffering, and am willing to vote against my interests to help others, and often do. This "voting against my interests" is to me just a basic facet of society. I don't have a preschooler, for example, but I'm happy to pay more in taxes so someone else's four year-old has a better start in life. That's just...moral. 

The conservatives instead seem to me to be short-sighted and selfish, voting for their immediate self-interest, like their bizarre free-market cultism, at the every turn. That was my characterization at the time of the conversation.

Afterwards, though, I was struck by something: How often have I criticized Republicans for voting against their self-interest? Many, many times. And I then realized it's more subtle than my initial portrayal, since GOP voters often support measures that are so obviously against their best interests. As such, here's the more nuanced version:

Liberals (these days, in the United States) vote against their self-interest in ways that help and support the neediest, and the most vulnerable. Conservatives (these days, in the United States) also vote against their self-interest, but to help the entrenched moneyed powers stay wealthy and empowered.

Both sides of the aisle can set aside their own narrow views, and, while there are a lot of them, we're not a nation comprised entirely of NIMBYs. The yawning divide between our charity, though, is not whether we use our vote to make life more difficult for ourselves, but instead whom we choose to benefit with it: the sick, the wretched, and the poor - or the lobbying elite? The liberals see their disinterested view as moral and/or more advanced: by helping others we all benefit as a society, plus it's just the right thing to do, helping the needy. 

However, this does not address the reasons why Conservatives so often self-inflict these wounds. I have no doubt misinformation and willful ignorance both play a part, but not, I don't think, the entire role. Actual ignorance is of course an issue, leading to voting patterns of bigotry and the like. The flip side, mentioned previously, is when Conservatives vote for a narrow, immediate self-interest, at the expense of harming their fellow citizens. This is also morally bankrupt for Liberals, since your happiness is not worth increasing others' suffering. Can we get Conservatives to get on board with these fundamental ethics? I don't know. I remain hopeful for them:

"But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas."