Days of Hope-Night of the Jackals

    Absorbing the overwhelming passions of life in the US these last days, I stammer to say we appear to be acting in diametrical dramas.
    We are separate realities, multiple players, different scripts desperately grabbing for control of our national soul.
    Our screens reveal who we have become, and who we may yet be. 
    Amidst it all a shroud of echoes hangs like a mist over America.

   
    The reverberating consequence of centuries hurled into our lives in 8 minutes and 46 seconds. Those minutes of hate blew away the fetters of pretense. Police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd on camera. The days and nights since have forced the US to face its demons, and to acknowledge that racism shelters deep in our history and is the father of malignant offspring. 

   Chauvin is the most recent pestilential hatch to betray his dark perversion. They are amongst us. It is inexcusable. Civilization knows better. Humanity rises above the beasts, but every racist heart is a liege of evil and the pulse of atrocity.

    The world has been watching. Millions abroad have also risen up. As veteran observers note, this is not just a "moment," this is about more than Floyd and the other victims before him, this appears to be an awakening. 
    The diversity of the demonstrators is extraordinary. Race, ethnicity, age, gender, and conviction of belief. We should not be sidetracked by the few; agitators, criminals, troublemakers, looters, idiots, or brutal and bully cops. There are jackals are both sides. They are overwhelmed by those who demand we understand what is systemic racism, and then do something, finally. After centuries. 

     We are adding chapters to an old discussion.

  

   A vintage photo of my late brothers, John and Jim.

  John, a charismatic psychologist/counselor was also a political radical, my good friend and best debating partner. He was SDS and on the front line of 60' and 70's politics. Protest, like that we are seeing now, was to him only a beginning. He wanted fundamental systemic change and reasoned if the system does not respond, if change does not occur, then a little revolution, even violence, was in order. He was confident he was purely Jeffersonian. 

     Being a couple of years his elder and working as a reporter, striving for objectivity and balance, I was a perfect foil, arguing that political change, the ballot box was the best route. He had little patience, citing the years of racism and economic exploitation and the privilege of the upper class and of late, their penchant for the profits of war.

     His milieu was the underground, striking at and undermining an indifferent ruling culture.

     

     50 years later I still argue for change through the electoral process and in legislation, but my patience is gone. I understand brother John's warrior soul. 

     

failed?

    From abroad we are viewed as a failed nation. We have lost credibility and impunity. Great American leaders question aloud if the American experiment has failed. I cannot recall American military leaders speaking out thusly, speaking against the character and leadership of a sitting US President. 

    We are in deep water and troubled seas.

    It does not help that a racist, spiritually crippled and inept man sits in the White House. George Will calls him a "malignant buffoon." He is a malignancy indeed who empowers a generation of racists, supremacists, and a dangerous species of losers and malcontents, some of whom are bad cops, all of whom have no place in the 21st century.
    We are better than Trump. The majority of US voters voted against him, in part in fear of exactly what we are living through. 
     He's been a bully on twitter and in his self loving rallies, now he is a bully using police and military powers. His comments on the day of Floyd's memorial service may be the most distasteful and appalling in Presidential history. There were echoes, a warning.

     After Trump finished his dark inaugural address George W. Bush whispered to Hillary Clinton "That was some weird shit."

    In our debates my brother always challenged, "...have you seen enough change, has it gotten better?"
      "It's a long process. There have been improvements, "I'd say.
     If black or brown or a woman, or an Asian, or native citizen, I would have had a different sense of timing and patience. White privilege had me in blinders.
     I suspect of a lot of us have caught up with my brother's urgency and zeal. 

a portent?

     Most US citizens don't know what happened a century ago. Aside from the Spanish Influenza pandemic, the US lived through a period of bombings, mostly by anarchists. The root was economic inequality, and the efforts of workers to organize. There was a wide gulf in wealth, wages, living and working conditions.
     The LA Times was destroyed in a 1910 blast with immense legal and political fall out. 
      It was a time of division and working people were trying to even the playing field. The Attorney General responded by trying to kill the movement and labor organizations. What followed was a series of bombings that shook the nation. Political and national leaders were targets of mail bombs. Buildings were bombed. There was fear. 

      The situation has echoed several times in our history including during those turbulent 60's and 70's, the back drop of my brotherly debates.  
       Once, John was willing to give "the system a try."

     He "got clean for Gene" peace candidate Eugene McCarthy for whom he campaigned and worked as a body guard and driver for one of McCarthy's leading spokesmen, actor Paul Newman.
    But as 1968 played out, he found himself back on the other side of the police lines in Chicago at the Democrat national convention, where the "police rioted," as a presidential commission later reported.
    The Trump and Barr ordered rush at peaceful demonstrators at the White House was reminiscent of 1968. At our station in life we've see things a time or two. 

     In 1968 a prophet of peace and change and a man who practiced non-violence was gunned down. Martin Luther King Jr was killed by a racist. The US exploded and cities burned. Months later Robert Kennedy, arguing for a new way, for racial justice, was gunned down. There was more violence.
     All these years later it is still dangerous to be black in America. Inequalities and disadvantages and risks that are seeded in slavery, remain. The political system that I argued was a place for change is presently inhabited by a racist, fascist in the White House and pandering sycophants and racists in his party. 

experiment on

     Police officers take a knee with protestors, military heroes warn us about the danger of the president, while some bad cops brutalize for no good reason and some troublemakers try to ruin a movement for change. We are talking about American values and the use of Presidential power. It seems the lobby for litigating justice and prosecuting racism has been emboldened. 
    The American experiment is not over, but it's noisy, ugly and may get worse here in the lab.

  A democratic republic can be messy, it was intended to that way. More voices can drive us to reason. Participation is essential.
  The US is not perfection, it remains a work in progress, an experiment. Change is the life blood, the hope of our days. 

   See you down the trail.

   

SPOILING THE PARTY

light on the path

Piedras Blacas Light Station-California Central Coast

        Light stations were designed to provide warning and guidance. In our own way bloggers, analysts and journalists do the same thing.

spotlight on thugs

Photo by Jim Wilson, New York Times

     The thugs above, captured by Jim Wilson only a few hours north of Cambria are another blight on the American dream. They have historic cousins.

 Public Domain/medaldrumworld.com
Washington, DC

          The first Klan march and rally I covered was 1965.

I thought the men and women who marched with their faces covered were cowards.  I think that still, regardless of the cause that puts a person in the streets.

 AllNews Pipeline
Anitfa "counter demonstrators"

      That is true for the violence prone troublemakers Antfia-or antifascists. 

       A quick and personal digression. My late brother was a political "radical" of the SDS persuasion. He was part of the "Days of Rage" and shared the Weatherman philosophy. He believed you fought violence with violence, when necessary.

       We had many long probing conversations and debates. He did not believe in starting a violent act, but he did not buy the idea of civil disobedience or non violence. A police night stick, or tear gas prompted an in-kind response. But one thing he would never do, was cover his face. He too thought that was cowardice. He marched, shouted and raged without masking himself. 

public domain
Cowardly Klansmen

       I covered many anti war and civil rights marches and demonstrations. I've been stung by tear gas, was hit on the head and knocked to the ground by a stanchion bearing a Viet Cong flag, was slammed up against a bus and kidney punched by an out of control cop who didn't want a reporter documenting his beating of people in a round up. 

     I understand the passion that put people on the front line of divisive issues. To cover your face is absolutely wrong and anti American.

    Anarchists have been a part of life around the planet for centuries. They created particular havoc in the US in the early 20th Century. Few US citizens realize how many bombings took place in those days.

    Antifa is a modern iteration; Autonomous groups that think fascism is so evil that violence is a proper recourse. They are themselves fascistic in their methods of opposing particular ideologies. They are not liberals, progressives or even left wingers. They are a self righteous band of violence prone, anarchists who see themselves as a kind of vigilante force.
     Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin has seen their influence. He says antifa gives the peaceful leftists a bad name.
      "It played into the false narrative that some conservatives have spun" about violent left wingers Arreguin told the Associated Press. He watched as antifa attacked protesters.

     Whether in klan hoods or antifa black, they are extremists who have convinced themselves direct action solves issues of understanding, education, bias, predatory capitalism, ignorance and other evils. No one who covers their face deserves respect, nor should they be permitted to further degrade an already weary democratic republic. We have problems to solve.

our heart breaks

    Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Texas,  Louisiana, Mumbai and India. For those of you with family or friends in those areas we hope you hear from them despite the heartbreaking news about loss of homes and property.

     See you down the trail.