The Consequences of (Secret) Compromise

Fifty-eight years ago in October, the world came closer to nuclear war than at any other time in history. I'm talking about what's become known as the "Cuban Missile Crisis". We're alive to talk about it today because war didn't break out. Why didn't it break out? A peaceful compromise was found.

"Identity Politics" in the 1860 Election

In a review of a biography of Abraham Lincoln in The New Yorker, Adam Gopnik makes a couple of throwaway observations of the 1860 campaign for the Republican nomination for President, observations about parallels to today's world.

The Lincolnians also courted a now often overlooked interest group, the émigré Germans, including many exiled by the failed liberal revolutions of 1848. As [Sidney] Blumenthal notes, Lincoln had bought a German-language newspaper, in order to appeal to those key players of the “identity politics” of the time. (It was the equivalent of surreptitiously funding Facebook pages in 2020.)

Source: The New Yorker.

Identity politics. Facebook. Both in a paragraph about the election of 1860. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The Man Who Wouldn't Spy for the US

"The F.B.I. tried to recruit an Iranian scientist as an informant. When he balked, the payback was brutal." Laura Secor tells the story of Sirous Asgari, an Iranian who had once attended graduate school in America, where his wife gave birth to his American citizen daughter, and where his two sons attended American universities. But on a visit in 2017 he was detained by the F.B.I. He was charged with "theft of trade secrets, visa fraud, and eleven counts of wire fraud." He considered the charges to be nonsense and refused a deal offered that appeared to be the real reason behind the charges — to get him to agree to act as an informant, that is to spy for the US back in Iran. He fought the trumped up charges in an American courtroom and won. But after the judge dismissed all charges against him, even before he could leave the courtroom, he was detained by I.C.E. And then the real hell began.

Now Democracy is a Dirty Word, Too

For years, I've tracked how virtues like tolerance and compromise and civility have all come under attack from conservatives. I've said, "What I thought made American democracy great is being surely dismantled, virtuous brick by virtuous brick." Ironically, the latest such motherhood and apple pie virtue that conservatives want no truck with any more is "democracy" itself.

Innovative Solutions for Texas Health Care

"Innovative Solutions for Texas Health Care." That's the headline on the campaign mailer for Genevieve Collins, GOP candidate for Congressional District 32. It's a fairly big card, certainly big enough to detail what the GOP's "innovative solutions" might be. This is what she offers:

• Health Care That's More Affordable
• Greater Access to Quality Care
• Allow You to Keep Your Doctor

Remembering the Pandemic

Now that COVID-19 is over (at least according to the Republican National Convention, where it was only mentioned in the past tense), it's time for a pandemic post-mortem. I rely on Ed Yong's article in The Atlantic, "How the Pandemic Defeated America." It's full of ideas to help us next time.

In case you didn't catch it, that headline and first sentence were dripping in sarcasm.

Martin and his Moral Arc

"The mythology of racial progress exerts a powerful hold on our minds." Mythology. That's the thesis of Jennifer A. Richeson in an article in The Atlantic titled "Americans Are Determined to Believe in Black Progress." Maybe I was primed to accept her pessimism. In any case, I kept finding myself nodding and quietly saying, uh huh.

To Donald: Sealed with a Kiss

Hypocrisy? Audacity? Chutzpah? I don't quite know the right word for the accusation I wanted to make when I opened my mail yesterday. Inside was a fundraising pitch from Donald J. Trump. Delivered by mail. I know that he has it in for the US Postal Service. Trump is frightened of losing re-election and sees his biggest threat as being, well, people voting. So he figures that the more he can suppress the vote, the better his chances. Hence, sabotage the USPS, since it's predicted that many, many people want to vote safely by mail in 2020 because of COVID-19. So he undermines Americans' confidence in the US Mail.

Long Shadow from Appleton

I was born in Appleton, Wisconsin. During my early childhood, I was blissfully unaware of politics. But Appleton was home base for some of the nastiest politics of the 20th Century. I gradually learned about the evil my hometown birthed and nurtured. In high school, I learned that the cemetery just down the street from my school was the eternal resting place of Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Women Weren't Given the Vote. They Took It.

For a country that prides itself on its democracy, the United States has forced a lot of its citizens to fight for the privilege of voting. August 18th marks the centenary of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which declares that the right to vote “shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” That milestone is sometimes described as having “given” women the right to vote. It wasn’t a gift; it was a hard-won victory on the part of suffragists who’d been agitating for it for more than seventy years, on the basis of their common humanity with men.

Source: Margaret Talbot.

Thank you, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Thank you, Carrie Chapman Catt and Alice Paul. Alice Paul especially was a real badass. She organized a march for women's suffrage down Pennsylvania Avenue the day before President Woodrow Wilson's inauguration. Anti-suffrage rioters disrupted the march while police stood idly by, giving no protection to the peaceful marchers. Then Alice Paul organized pickets in front of the White House designed to prod the president into supporting women's suffrage. The civil disobedience campaign lasted months. Paul herself was arrested several times and finally sentenced to jail for seven months. She went on a hunger strike and was force fed raw eggs through a feeding tube. The publicity of the horrible treatment of her in jail kept the cause in the public eye. After passage of the 19th Amendment, Paul said, "It was shocking that a government of men could look with such extreme contempt on a movement that was asking nothing except such a simple little thing as the right to vote."

"Never Let a Good Crisis Go to Waste."

Remember back in April and May when meatpacking plants were hotspots of coronavirus? Do you wonder why they're no longer in the headlines? Do you think it's because the owners reformed how they are run and reopened them safely? Think again. The plants might still be hotbeds of coronavirus. We don't know because governments have allowed the plants to quit reporting statistics of the spread of coronavirus among their workers.

An old political precept is "Never let a good crisis go to waste." The idea is to take advantage of a crisis to advance a political agenda. The Bush administration used the notion to escalate the 9/11 attacks into a war on Iraq, which was not involved in the 9/11 attacks. The saying itself was popularized by Rahm Emmanuel, who saw the financial crash of 2008 as an opportunity to do the things he once thought were impossible. Today's crisis is the coronavirus pandemic. President Trump has proven himself incompetent at combating the pandemic, but that doesn't mean he isn't using the crisis to advance his own political agenda.

Defund the Police?

Joe Gamaldi, Houston Police Officers Union President and National FOP VP, posted on Facebook some data from a Pew Research Center survey. Gamaldi's post was shared by the Richardson Police Officers' Association FOP Lodge 105. That's where I saw it.

First, a summary of the Pew data. 42% of Americans favor keeping spending on policing about the same. 31% favor increasing spending by a little or a lot. 25% favor decreasing spending by a little or a lot.

The Pandemic Next Time

It's time to worry about the next pandemic. What? Too soon? I don't think so. Ebola, HIV, SARS, H5N1 "bird flu," MERS, COVID-19. It's not like we don't know another pandemic is coming. The fact that we escaped the worst with each of these recent diseases, doesn't mean we always will. We've been lucky, even with COVID-19, which, even though the US has suffered 133,000 deaths and counting, turns out not to be the extinction-level pandemic it might have been. The "big one" is still coming. It's not a matter of if, only when. It's time to consider the pandemic next time.

Getting the Facts Right but the Guidance Wrong

The CDC originally did not recommend face masks because they knew viruses are small enough to get through all but medical grade masks. They didn't want a run on face masks, especially medical grade masks, which were in desperate need in hospitals. They didn't want people to think they were invulnerable wearing non-medical-grade face masks. By April 4, CDC realized they had the facts right but the guidance wrong. So they changed the guidance. Stay home, but if you really have to go out, wear a face mask. It's not perfect, but it's better than nothing. If everyone who has to go out wears a face mask while doing so, we can cut transmission of coronavirus and save lives. That's still pretty much the guidance today, three months later.

Term Limits for Heroes

Statue of George Washington in Smithsonian Museum

Statues of Confederate heroes* are coming down all over America. So are statues of Christopher Columbus and conquistadors. Not even the slaveholders George Washington and Thomas Jefferson have escaped notice. There are passionate voices on both sides. I have a simple solution that takes the passion out of the equation, now and forever after.

Europe Erects Wall to Keep Out Americans

According to The New York Times, "E.U. Formalizes Reopening, Barring Travelers From U.S. The bloc will allow visitors from 15 countries, but the United States, Brazil and Russia were among the notable absences from the safe list."

It's fitting in more ways than the obvious one.

Living in Exhilarating Times

2020 will go down in history as a pivotal time in American history, along with 1968, 1929, 1860, and 1776. The year has already seen a presidential impeachment, the coronavirus pandemic, economic collapse, and widespread demands for racial justice. All that in just the first half of the year. Still to come is a presidential election that will determine whether our nation survives as a democratic republic. We are witnessing history.

LBJ's Civil Rights Grade

President Lyndon Johnson was responsible for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, thus doing more for civil rights in this country than any President since Abraham Lincoln. Still, the country erupted in violent protests against police brutality in the summers of 1967 and 1968. What went wrong? Maybe it was the unrealistic expectations that racism could be solved with a stroke of a pen. LBJ understood that progress is made in fits and starts.

What Not to Say

Last week, I pointed to a statement by Richardson Chamber of Commerce CEO Bill Sproull as an example of what to say in response to all the tragedies experienced by our country in the last days and months. He used plain language. He was direct. He named the problem. Today, I want to highlight a statement by someone else that exemplifies the things not to say.

"Prejudice and Privilege Exist in Richardson"

The best local statement on recent events was made by Bill Sproull, Chairman/CEO of the Richardson Chamber of Commerce. Here is an excerpt.

We are horrified by the murder of George Floyd specifically and send our condolences to his family.
We support peaceful protesters and absolutely believe #BlackLivesMatter
Prejudice and privilege exist in Richardson. It absolutely does.

Source: Richardson Chamber of Commerce.

It's short and to the point.
He names the victim.
He calls murder, murder.
He supports peaceful protest.
He says the three simple words, "Black Lives Matter."
He admits racism still exists in Richardson.

That's how it should be done. And it comes from the Chamber of Commerce.