Prior to the election, I found myself impassioned to post short, editorial-length updates on Facebook instead of blogging. After the election I've had a few comments but with less focus.
Lately thinking in the US has ended up on either side of a chasm between what the left considers legitimate and what was termed far-right thinking by the left -- for example, local resistance toward "anti-racist," "woke," and "CRT"-based educational initiatives. Other thinking does exist but so far either it has fallen neatly into place or it has not gained much of a toe-hold. Before I try my hand at something other than group-think on either side of the political divide, here's where I've been.
Addendum of July 26, 2021: These posts do not represent my final thoughts. They are my thinking, my thoughts in process.
My posts from September 2020 - May 2021:
September 12, 2020
It's not over til it's over.Despite all, Trump might win, just as he's overcome all challenges so far. We might snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.
To prevent that, we need to stop awarding truths to Trump.
For example: that he loves America and wants it to be great, but that Democrats hate it.What we need to do is repudiate the part of the philosophy that says America is nothing but bad, that it's corrupt all the way down and nothing but racist from the beginning. We need to repudiate hatred by finding praise as well as condemnation.It's kind of like having gratitude as well as complaints.
For example: that he loves America and wants it to be great, but that Democrats hate it.What we need to do is repudiate the part of the philosophy that says America is nothing but bad, that it's corrupt all the way down and nothing but racist from the beginning. We need to repudiate hatred by finding praise as well as condemnation.It's kind of like having gratitude as well as complaints.
You may feel strongly about calling out wrongs.
But remember that condemnation is not a winning philosophy.
Don't hand Trump a truth that says he loves America and we hate it.
But remember that condemnation is not a winning philosophy.
Don't hand Trump a truth that says he loves America and we hate it.
I'm going to be trying to bring out some of these issues. You may not want to associate yourself. But please take note.
He's so bad that he can't get back in on his own, but only if we put him back in.
September 14, 2020
Trump says Democrats are creating havoc in the streets and burning down the cities. He says, to stop the violence, reelect him.
We, the Democrats, answer with excuses: only a small percentage of the protests turn violent. A false-flag right-winger started it. Or, the favorite: it's just a few people who are violent. That's defensive. Basically, OUR "bad-apple" theory.
Antifa is not real. Or, not a monolith.
Excuses.
We have to do Biden one better and repudiate the violence AND the philosophy behind it. Otherwise, we're handing the truth to Trump.
We don't like the idea that the philosophy has violent components, but it does. We ourselves, conceding the point, turn around and say, well, people are angry, and anger gets attention.
It's the wrong kind of attention! All we need is a few more incidents like last night's ambushing of the deputies, while protesters in the street cheer....
By saying the violence is "understandable," we as much as support the violence. It's that nothing-but-condemnation perspective again, a losing philosophy that lends truth to Trump's message.
We have to make up our minds.
He can't get back in on his own without our help. Are we going to keep helping?
1. Don't stop with what's wrong with America. Take away Trump's prerogative to proclaim what's right.
2. Make up our minds on the violence thing. If we want to kick ass -- or see it kicked -- we risk seeing four more years.
September 24, 2020
(on the topic of "defunding the police")
There's been a lot of talk lately about substituting mental health and social services for the police.
I worked almost 20 years in outpatient public mental health, ending in 1998. The mental health center was in an area where the patrons suffered from poverty and other social issues. Not everyone in the community suffered from those ills, of course, but the well-to-do weren't the main patrons of public mental health. Crises were not uncommon, and over the years of my employment, a lot of people had to go against their will to get evaluated for inpatient treatment, due to being dangerous to themselves or others. Usually the way that happened is that deputies would come when summoned to transport the patient to Georgia Regional Hospital for the evaluation. I can't remember episodes of serious violence among those patients, despite occurrences of yelling or cursing or even stripping naked. But most usually, once events began to unfold, the patient waited without further ado to be transported to the hospital.
Am I advocating for the handing over of mental health emergencies in the community to psychologists and social workers?
No.
Things went smoothly at Mental Health not only because of the skills of the staff but also due to the aura of authority: doctors, nurses, psychologists, offices, in an official institutional setting.
Once during the period of time I was working there, Dennis and I were at the Plaza for a movie, and we saw a disheveled and agitated man with a wild beard pacing back and forth in the parking lot outside. Could I intervene as I would have done at work?
No -- because I had none of the accoutrements of authority that I would have had at work. Nor had the man been brought in or come on his own for help.
Police could consult mental health. Police could refer to mental health. But in life-or-death emergencies where somebody could get hurt or come to harm, the police will do the best they can.
Mental health or social service workers might accompany police in dealing with violent emergencies in the community, but would have to hang back until the violence is stabilized. You're not going to send in a psychiatrist to take a weapon away from an agitated person.
Institutions and the authority that comes with them cannot be so easily dispensed with.
November 8, 2020
LET'S HEAR IT FOR LIBERAL DEMOCRACY
Part of the rationale for 2016 was that a lot of people were fed up with business as usual -- scandals, less-than-perfect politicians, logjams and gridlock, and, worst of all, not being treated right. So now we've had our flirtation with totalitarianism lite, and maybe a few trains did run on time, but mainly it's been a train wreck. Are you ready for some normalcy? I am! Liberal democracy may be a slow and messy process, but right about now, business as usual is looking pretty good!
November 28, 2020
I am thankful for the investigative reporters who delved into election law and history to report what Trump likely would do if he lost, and for the scholars and legal teams and their "war" games on how to handle. I'm thankful for the mainstream media who began to insert warnings re his strategy into the nightly news. Thus, Trump lost the element of surprise.
The media was right on, as we can see from the actions of the Trump campaign. He would NOT concede. He would keep claiming fraud. His team would try to declare the election had failed in swing states and that Republican state legislatures should appoint slates of Republican electors while disenfranchising millions of voters.
And I'm thankful for Lady Luck, who decreed the vote wasn't close enough to enhance Trump's game.
Trump, like Tinkerbell, is saying clap if you believe, but the applause is diminishing.
What was the message of the recent election?
Some centrist Democrats have faulted the more progressive members of the party for the term "socialism," saying that's why certain voters supported Biden but not the down-ballot candidates, and why the House lost Democratic members.
We like to capture problems in a single word. But "socialism" is not it.
So why do Biden Republicans and some on the center-right think divided government is a good idea? Why do they want to elect Perdue and Loeffler, even if they don't buy the BS?
It's not "socialism."
Maybe it's the emphasis on the color of skin instead of the content of character. On treatment of others that violates the golden rule. On differences of opinion treated as heresy and silenced. On public shaming and getting even, conducted not out of strength but out of fear and insecurity. An if-you're-not-with-me-you're-agin'-me attitude: in short, an inverse version of the divisiveness we have just been enduring for four years.
We can call it "wokeness." Or identity politics. Or Critical Race Theory. Some say "successor ideology."
The ideological language is not limited to progressives. It has crept into ordinary mainstream journalism, some of it even into Biden's speeches.
I'm not talking about the term "socialism."
We have to engage in actual thinking about the words we use. And the accusations we make.
Not indoctrination. Not slogans.
Thinking.
Why is it so hard to bring up this stuff?
December 20, 2020
Systemic Racism
It's said that whoever owns the common wisdom owns history. The common wisdom today is that we're beset with systemic racism
That would mean the system is sick; infected.
Well, we are infected with this disease metaphor!
Back in July, DeKalb County declared racism a public health crisis.
I'm not complaining if the CDC studies racism. They should resume studying gun violence, too.
In August the president of the Atlanta Rabbinical Association editorialized that racism is a sickness in the soul of our country, later shifting his metaphor to call it a social illness.
Like juvenile delinquency in West Side Story? A "social disease?"
Like juvenile delinquency in West Side Story? A "social disease?"
I wasn't surprised, since I'd long heard of the virus metaphor for antisemitism.
I've been thinking along these lines for more than a decade.
Who cares if these are metaphors?
I care.
Why
Because these aren't germs.
Racism is TAUGHT, not CAUGHT.
With the metaphor, racism is everywhere--and nowhere.
Do we really want to be rooting it out of generic white people?
How does that help with the Boogaloo Bois, or the Proud Boys?
How does that help with the Boogaloo Bois, or the Proud Boys?
Nor does the metaphor differentiate between what's out there in society and what's inside. Externals can be policed, but a victim mentality must be overcome otherwise. That's how you gain true agency.
And finally, step away from the creation of enemies.
With hindsight it's easy to wonder why Japan perpetrated Pearl Harbor. They woke up a sleeping giant, they unified the U.S., they created their enemy.
Blaming everybody for racism does not separate the evildoers from the merely inane or the innocent. Some institutions, some individuals really have reformed or improved. Blaming everyone across the board acts as a slap in the face, a kick in the teeth. It is divisive.
It creates the enemy.
January 8, 2021
An inconvenient truth
Yesterday Atlanta Journal Constitution columnist Bill Torpy's column described how GA Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan pushed back against Trumpish allegations of voter fraud and stolen elections. Duncan spoke out against the need for a special legislative session to nullify the vote. He contradicted Trump's lies about "winning big" in Georgia. Why speak out? asked some Republican officials. The Lt. Gov. spoke out "unneccessarily," they said. Just "increasing his exposure." He "loves attention." "He loves the power. "He believes the Lord sent him to save the world." Then they threatened him with being "primaried." From further afield came those death threats.
Why is the truth so inconvenient? It runs up against the narrative, that's why. If the truth is heard, the narrative is torpedoed. I mean the one about election fraud and Trump's big win. Hit by the truth, that narrative sinks.
Without the narrative, our erstwhile Republican candidates are revealed as appeasers. Fearful appeasers: cowards.
Let's hear it for the truth.
But we gotta be truth-tellers all the way around. Not just about the opponents' narrative. Otherwise we're being politically expedient, not tellers of truth.
That's the hard part. The truth is inconvenient and awkward. People take offensive action against the truth, as happened with Lt. Gov. Duncan.
What helps in resisting the pressure? A thirst for truth.
January 21, 2021
Thinking in progress:
The impeachment should go forward. The insurrectionists should be found and prosecuted.
That said, we should not valorize one side of our political divide while delegitimizing the other. We talk of a "long overdue racial reckoning" but don't want to look at how we got to the point where a huge number of Americans wanted Trump and, despite all, wanted to keep him. It's easier to point the finger and call them -- as a class -- evil, racist, conspiracy theorists and worse.
There can be more than one kind of reckoning. The world is complicated. Reality is complex.
We've reaped the consequences of NewtSpeak and Trumpism, of making the other side the evil enemy. (On this, the left gave lessons to the right, and, before that, probably the right taught the left.)
Punishment where punishment is due, yes, but of scapegoating, enough already!
The right side won. Don't gloat.
People were not made to riot or provoked to participate in insurrection. They did it, and now they must suffer the consequences.
Can't we get to the bottom of why so many people felt the need for Trump and fell under his sway?
I'm not so enamored of the usual explanations and favor an economic angle.
February 19, 2021
Truth and goodness go together...like a horse and carriage? 
I don't mean "your truth" and "my truth" -- arguably, code for what you believe and what I believe. The truth is out there.
If
lies are out (lies meaning NOT good), then we have to be able to tell
the difference between lies and truth. How do you know what the truth
is? A Zoom lecture this week advised using your gut, heart, and mind. He
was a bible scholar, yet he said the greatest tool we have for
discerning truth is the scientific method. You form a hypothesis and
make your observations. If the observations (facts; evidence) don't bear
out your hypothesis, you need to change (improve) your hypothesis about
what is going on. DON'T fiddle with your hypothesis to MAKE it fit.
Okay, so now the plot thickens
Say that my NARRATIVE is my hypothesis (narrative being how I connect the dots, in other words, what I say what is going on).
If
I say off the bat that my narrative is fact, how am I any different
from my opponents who are also pushing their narratives? If what I say
is not open to question? If I call those who disagree with me traitor?
or to take another example, racist?
February 22, 2021
Truth, Narrative, and Values
A few days ago I wrote about truth and how to discern the truth, where truth has to do with being good. The responses I received had to do with testing and questioning one's assumptions.
But, what if you don't question because you don't think you need to? Your narrative already accords with your assumptions -- and with your biases. How does it even occur to you to question and test? That's the thing: if there's no daylight between your narrative and your worldview, why would you question? If you believe you're supporting justice?
That's how we end up with the true believers on each end of the political spectrum.
Here is an instance that might pry open the minds of a small segment of people: On last night's NBC Nightly News with Kate Snow, in for Lester Holt on Sundays, a story ran on the great vaccination job being done by Israel. At the tale end of the story, though, the anchor added that Israel has provided far fewer vaccinations to Palestinians.
The NBC story did not distinguish between Arab Israeli citizens and Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza. I'd previously heard that the BBC apologized for a story saying that Israel hadn't vaccinated Palestinians in the occupied territories. During the Oslo Accords, Palestinians requested and received the right to administer their own vaccination programs.
The relevant UN agency admits that was the Oslo agreement, but says international law takes precedence. So Israel should have nevertheless vaccinated those Palestinians.
The vaccination question tops a recent list of myths about Israel from the Jewish Virtual Library, which quotes a Palestinian Authority health official as saying that they are NOT a branch of Israel. "We have our own government and Ministry of Health, and they are making huge efforts to get the vaccine." Another official says they have not asked for Israel's help. Israel says their offers and attempts to engage have been rebuffed.
I did only a little research and can't be absolutely sure of its accuracy. Still, have the news agencies done their research? Or have they fallen into their own narrative, biases and all? Have they taken the easy way out and gone with their assumptions and expectations in how they tell this story? Did that conclusion to their news story serve as an admonition against too much praise for Israel in a case where their narrative has a stronger pull than the facts?
I am a member of a Reform (liberal) synagogue, where the predominant voices are those that uncritically support the progressive narrative about race and identity in America. Like many (but not all) Democrats, most (but not all) of my friends there accept the progressive narrative as true and good. But, being Jews, some of them might notice the way the narrative about Israel, Palestinians, and the vaccinations is playing.
If they are able to see differences between narrative and fact in one connection, might they become willing to see it in another?
I don't think this particular story would provide the same opening for progressives who are not Jews. For them, the story about Israel and Palestinians would probably coincide with their overall narrative.
Hannah Arendt wrote about the hazards of thinking in slogans. I have a strong interest in how people begin THINKING. If we're thinking, we might question and test our assumptions and fit our narratives to the facts instead of vice versa.
March 11, 2021
The Dr. Seuss discontinuations etcetera
I learned my Greek mythology from Margaret Evans Price's Myths and Enchantment Tales and gorgeous art deco illustrations, 1950 edition. And when I bought a new edition 10 or 15 years ago, the story about the pygmies was gone. Replaced. No matter; wasn't one of my favorites. Just saying that some of this isn't new.
Remember the big to-do in 2018 over the renaming of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award? The Association for Library Service to Children removed Laura Ingalls Wilder's name from the award because her characterizations of Native Americans had become unacceptable. She wrote, for example, that the West was open and empty (since nobody lived there except Indians); even worse, that the only good Indian is a dead Indian.
James LaRue, Director of the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom, wrote that this is not censorship. They did not ban the book; just changed the name of the award. Some people had concerns, though, that the change offers an excuse to remove her work from libraries and reading lists.
Defamation seems to represent unkindness, or, even more than that, a threat, since describing people as less than human can be a rehearsal of treating them that way.
Yet denouncing such occurrences is so damn random.
L. Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz was denounced early on for his witches, talking animals, and the strong female lead, but far from it lately. Yet he wrote editorials that far exceed the sentiments that can be found in the works of Ms. Wilder, which in fact were widespread in that day and time. Some legacies, it seems, are left alone to flourish as they may, while others are made targets of ire and made to serve as examples. Where is the justice in that?
In 2017, the Association for Library Service to Children bestowed the (then) Wilder Award on distinguished poet Nikki Grimes, despite the fact that her body of work contains a book about Easter that stoops to profoundly antisemitic tropes. Not only did she literally follow Jew-blaming New Testament verses, she also found new ways to add to them. Yet her receipt of that award has not been questioned.
Criticism of the antisemitic poems of T. S. Eliot was long in coming, but it did come.
Allowing the work of Nikki Grimes to be awarded uncritically makes the Association for Library Service to Children appear hypocritical.
We call out some people but not others. We willingly see the dangers inherent in what some people say and do, but not in others.
Such are the workings of power.
Power, not justice.
As long as these discrepancies exist, I am profoundly distrustful of our call-out culture in all its guises.
March 13, 2021
Miracle of miracles, the Wall Street Journal let me read the article this morning, but no more! I can't reopen, but here's how it starts. By Marilyn Greenwald, published yesterday (the 12th):
"The recent decision by the estate of Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel to pull six of his books because of crude stereotypical portrayals has exploded in the news. Some claim that the action represents the worst of cancel culture, while others praise the decision because they believe the depictions can promote racial insensitivity.
But Geisel’s heirs aren’t the first to confront the sanctity of children’s literature and whether books should ever be altered for changing times. In 1959 and 1960, some of the world’s most beloved fictional characters—Nancy Drew, Frank and Joe Hardy, Tom Swift and others—received a face-lift as publishers grappled with a similar challenge. In 1959, series fiction published by the Stratemeyer Syndicate underwent a multiyear rewrite, ostensibly to eliminate racial and ethnic stereotypes and to conform to modern times.
Those extensive changes weren’t publicized and remained unknown for years to unsuspecting readers, including parents, who assumed their children were reading the same books they read decades ago as kids. The “updating,” as the publishers called it, was a secret worthy of the talents of the Hardys or Ms. Drew.
Even the author of the first group of Hardy Boys books, the man behind the pen name Franklin W. Dixon, wasn’t aware of the changes. Hardy Boys ghostwriter Leslie McFarlane was told about the changes by a Toronto reporter more than three decades after he wrote most of the books.
McFarlane had moved on to become a successful writer and film producer, but he was shocked by many of the changes. McFarlane didn’t mind that the revisions eliminated the description of a Chinese character as having “an evil yellow face,” nor did he care that criminals were no longer described routinely as “dark” or “swarthy,” often with foreign accents. He and his fellow ghostwriters were equal-opportunity xenophobes: Cops were..."
That's all I could get to! The article goes on to say the books were dumbed down, shortened; big words and any literary references, such as to Shakespeare or Dickens, were removed. And any objectionable features of authority figures were cleansed! Cops couldn't even be bumbling anymore, much less, mean. As the blog referenced below indicates, the main characters were made more "wholesome," with any rebellious features deleted. Starting in 1959 or '60!
Nevertheless, the youth revolution was NOT deleted!
April 13, 2021
Judging from a NYT article reprinted in my paper today, sounds like the science supports a "vaccine passport:"
From a 1905 Supreme Court case (Jacobson v. Massachusetts), "a community has the right to protect itself against an epidemic of disease which threatens the safety of its members."
Sounds like the article is saying that it's digital vaccine verification apps that are generating the debate. Why? Because of equitability?
The President doesn't want it. The WHO is citing equity concerns.
Some Republican governors are barring state agencies or any private entities that get state funding from requiring proof of vaccination.
Yet having such a requirement sounds like "No shoes, no shirt, no service."
Per the NYT article, by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Adam Liptak, state and local health services are "mystified" by the official federal reticence.
"It's going to be necessary to have this, and there is going to have to be some kind of system where it's verified," said Dr. Marcus Plescia, the chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.
May 17, 2021
Israel-Palestine
I am going to venture a few words because what you are hearing is not merely an oversimplified narrative but a false one.
Netanyahu did not start this fight to retain power. The evictions in the East Jerusalem neighborhood weren't the trigger, nor the march nor other actions re the end of Ramadan. They are the excuse.
Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) promised to hold Palestinian elections, perhaps for the sake of the incoming Biden administration, but his own party is fractured. Some wanted another slate of candidates. Also, Fatah (the Palestinian Authority) might lose to Hamas, the party in control in Gaza. Abbas needed an excuse to cancel elections.
Fatah, also, was losing popularity in Gaza. It needed to retain its power and assert itself over and against Abbas' party as the voice of Palestinian nationalism. It too needed an excuse.
Fatah isn't so much fighting to free Palestine as to assert itself.
Whenever Abbas' party and Israel get along, for example, if they were to make any progress toward peace, Hamas perceives that as an existential threat. For some reason the Palestinian rupture is rarely mentioned in the US news.
Bibi Netanyahu has not been able to form a government after five elections. On May 5, his rival Yair Lapid was asked to try. The head of the Israeli Arab Islamist party was (is?) planning to participate, even if a right-wing party also becomes part of a unity government.
If Hamas can't stand the times when Abbas' party gets along better with Israel, how do you think Hamas feels if Arab Israelis are going to participate in the Israeli government?
If that happened, what would be Hamas' raison d'être?
That's why Hamas attacked. Not so much about freeing Palestine. Not about peace.
If Palestine were free, what would be Hamas' raison d'être then?
If Hamas is not after freedom or peace, they aren't the agent that's going to help the Palestinian people. They are using them as well as attacking Israel, and need to be stopped.
I'm glad President Biden has held out this long. He seems to have some understanding.
Important: the situation between Israel and Palestine does not map with American racial politics.
Since Hamas can get the material to build thousands and thousands of rockets, maybe they could also get material to build for the future. Or someone could.
Build it and they will come!
I'm not an expert, and what I have written is oversimplified, but I believe it's getting at the truth. I will try to answer if you have questions.
May 18, 2021
The Left, the Right, and the Center
A few years ago -- actually, it was 1994 -- Newt Gingrich made "liberal" a dirty word.
Well, even before that, "conservative" was a dirty word. Back in the day. Remember?
Either way, there was no center. One side was good, the other was evil incarnate, and if you weren't for us, you were agin us. Trump took it further. No legit criticism; if you weren't for him, you were a never-Trumper, a traitor, an enemy of the people.
Taking a page out of the Trump play book, if you aren't an anti-racist, you're a racist. No center. No legitimate dialogue; just "white fragility."
Latest is that the right is "obsessed" with wokeness. No legit crit. If you are THINKING about any of this political stuff, you are THE ENEMY.
NO THINKING ALLOWED. Thinking not needed.
Thinking would interfere with ideological purity.
I already spent the bulk of my life keeping my head down under the line of fire and my lips zipped. About ten or fifteen years ago, though, I got in the habit of THINKING. I liked it.
So, if for you, because I am thinking about the matter of Israel-Palestine (among other things), I must be a right-winger, consider whether you have slipped into requiring some sort of purity test -- and whether doing that is in fact liberal.
Liberal democracy can only exist where there's a center. A center where thinking -- and discussion -- can occur. For that there must be shades of gray. Nuance. Disagreement as well as agreement. Even mistakes. Who's perfect, anyway?
Maybe you would like to think about it before branding with the "enemy" or "bad guy" label. Maybe you would be willing to talk about it.
But once the brand is applied, no dialogue or debate needed.
They are "racist." Or "traitors." "Socialists," or "white." Or.... the possibilities are legion.
Branding -- labeling -- someone is a trick to sidestep dealing with their ideas. Who they are becomes the explanation.
And by the way how did it happen that "Israel" -- and Jews -- got branded as right wing? How did that even happen. Do you know? (NOT what's your excuse for it, but how did it happen?) Do you ever dwell on that?
