Defusing the Bomb

        Talk of war, cultural or otherwise, is dangerous, emotionally precipitous and enables forces that strangle rationality.

      There is no shortage of bad actors in this destructive detour of the American experience. We'll take a closer look after first some good news and diversion.

        The numbers are up, some 3,500% at the Pismo Beach Monarch butterfly grove.

        The Monarchs fly some 1500 hundred miles to winter on the California Central coast. The numbers had been in decline.

        Scholars say the habitat they seek, in which to cluster, is being destroyed for development. Pesticides, and changing climate patterns have also taken a toll.

        The increase this year at the grove is encouraging as people on the central coast have been planting milkweed which attracts the butterflies.

shadowland

        As a kid I was fascinated by shadows and shadow play. The other day I noticed our new kitten "discover" his shadow. It surprised him. 

        Shadows make for fascinating photos. 

        Please permit these shots to offer you a visual rest, as we dive into the bad blood being stirred by shadow warriors.

        Those who know war and war zones are not those who are exciting the strife. 

        War is an act of desperation. It means that diplomacy, rationality and problem solving has failed. It means we have failed as human beings. 

        The more that media instigators, Twitter and Facebook combatants, and the under educated amp up the rhetoric, the more they foreclose on understanding, settlement  and their own enlightenment. The more they divide us!

        There is a large and unhealthy dose of delusional thinking in the nation. Those who buy into the big lie should sue the right wing cable networks and social media outlets for mental abuse. Propaganda has gotten us to this point. We are on edge.

          Both the the right and left claim guilty players. 

on the right

        The blitz on the credibility of the election, a fully delusional and dishonest effort is none-the-less believed by an misinformed mass. It's testament to the power of brainwashing. Tragically, it is compounded by the majority of the Republican party in Washington.

        Republicans try to ignore the January 6th Insurrection and attack. If they were to summon honesty and candor, it would go a long way to lesson the impact of the blood thirsty right wing lunatics fomenting for "war." Party complicity speeds destruction of our belief in democratic principles. 

        The American Republic is being undone by Republican collusion with lies and authoritarianism. 

on the left

        No less an unlikely alliance than Linguistic scholar and author John McWhorter and political strategist James Carville precisely describe the progressive left's destructive impact-"Wokeness."

      Carville says it's "faculty lounge foolishness" and it's killing Democrat's appeal. McWhorter's new book "Woke Racism:How a New Religion has Betrayed Black America" makes the case that Woke is in fact racist. He says it is a kind of intellectual suicide as well. 

       It is typical of far left ideology. No matter how well intended a new "social moralism" or idea may be, it can often be elitist, out of touch, and without "real world" grounding. Far left ideas can be as ill hatched and damaging as far right fear mongering and racism. 

        "Cancel Culture" is fascism. Those who engage in it are foolish, and enemies of free speech and thought. 

right wing fear

        There are historic principles at work behind this conflict of values and attitudes. 

        Conservative politics has always been fueled in part by fear. There is the fear of changing the norm, or the status quo as a bedrock. Conservatives have seen "socialism" or "marxism" like some see the boogeyman. It was there in trying to stop the union movement, in the civil rights movement, in welfare or child care or medical relief legislation. It's like Henny Penny and the "sky is falling." 

         Critical Theory, an intellectual discipline for study, a tool for understanding, is in the minds of conservative strategists and polemicists a communist or marxist plan to dismantle the Republic. Never mind free thought, the freedom that comes with challenging a premise or intellectuality. Now mobs are storming school boards fomenting about CRT when it is likely the majority of them never took a class in legal theory, philosophy, criticism, or civil rights. But it's red meat and rally's the base.

 

effetely left

        There is often an arrogance in liberal certitude. So sure that virtue is on their side when it comes to extending liberties, or using government as a tool to aid and assist, they too quickly dismiss those who disagree as being racist, ignorant or unbathed.

        Brian Williams refers to that wing of the Democrat party as the Whole Food's wing. Smug, self confident, and out of touch with the most of America.

there is no same as it ever was

       Progressives have been leavening in the loaf of American politics. Our founders were progressive thinkers, in fact they were radicals even revolutionaries. 

       Progressive thought is in the DNA of America. They seed ideas about progress, and reform. They are a good counter punch to the monied oligarchs who own a kind of wealthy selfishness/stinginess that has driven Republican business worship. It is "the rich take care of the rich" politics of the last century. Please recall that it took a turn coat elite Republican to bust his party when they got too much of their way in the gilded age. Teddy Roosevelt busted the trusts, brought regulation, standards for food and drugs, giving the average citizen a break after they had been savaged by the wealthy, and robber barons. Republicans look out for business and wealth. 

        Democratic compassionates have tried to bend the levers of government to uplift the downtrodden, level it out, bring equality to the table and make government service for the public a reality. Democrats reason those services are needed and taxes are a way to pay for it. They think the wealthy should pay a fair rate. 

        The wealthy, corporations, and bankers of course bristle at the idea of a large government providing for child care, family leaves, public assistance and keeping up roads and bridges especially if it means they need to pay taxes or that government tries to penetrate their off shore veil and tax shelters. Republicans are their representatives. 

        More or less this has been the battle-line, and historically it worked its way to finding legislation and governance through compromise or a middle ground. It has rewarded both views periodically, pendulum like. 

    A point I've tried insert is that over the years liberals and conservatives, Democrat and Republicans and have swapped positions, changed views, morphed, helix like. Case in point, Democrats were once the racists, Republicans were the racial progressives.

        This mutability underscores the insanity of this angry time in America. We have been on a slide to this moment of division for some time. To understand that, one needs a sense of history, a knowledge of government, a long view and an understanding of driving forces. One must also believe in a commonweal, or common good. There is little of that now!

        We've become fractured, with short attention spans, easily diverted and manipulated, media has become shallow, politics has become a profession, elections are a business, too many of the players are egoists, zealots or racketeers. Newt Gingrich was the modern virus that killed off collegiality, compromise, negotiation, and truthful legislative government. 

The Republican party allowed itself to taken over by thugs more interested in themselves than national consensus or good.

            They've become anti democracy fascists in the grip of a mob boss mentality. The Democrats with no real majority are being held hostage by an internal fight between progressives and moderates while two selfish outliers see how much they can get for themselves. At its best the system is sick, and the America body politic needs emergency triage.

        We are shouting at each other, behaving horribly, and not interested in holding the center. Idiots want to provoke a fight, or secede, and sadly, tragically a huge percentage are being roiled up in a giant and malignant fantasy.

        Scholarship and the work of historians will look upon this time in America as the nadir. We have failed as human beings, we have failed as citizens. We have failed to think for ourselves and we have become angry and frequently stupid mobs.

        If people put national interests over their clique lust,

if a few Republicans would act with honor, a transformative and long overdue infusion of investment in our people, our very essence, and our national bones would energize commerce and spirit and would rapidly marginalize the lies, the liars, the fringe, and make all of the culture war/civil war talk so much hot air.

        81 Million voters, the largest vote ever, cast their ballots to depose and dispose of a malignant force. The will of the majority of us is being stymied by selfishness, ignorance and cowardice that allows the basest, most villainous, venal and contemptible behavior to become common place. 

        If we don't lower the volume, and begin to listen, truly listen, open our minds and reclaim our national soul of aspiration we will indeed become the wretched and dissolute states of America.

        It is time for reason and cool heads. Time to honor the idea of civil debate, not war. Time to understand the radiating power and good that comes in compromise. It is time for an age of reconciliation.

        There is probably something in this that angered you.

Will this make a difference or cause even one of you to widen your view? I suspect the answer is no.

      So to Addie and Henry, my grandchildren, I hope that when you read this, your world will be less strident and that we humans treat each other with more decency and respect.

       Regardless of your reality, please know no one is always right, that all ideas are the work of mere humans and subject to all the foibles that make us the complicated, confounding and wonderful beings that we are. We are all children of creation, imperfect but we share the planet, and we share a future, and each life, each one of us is sacred. Our destiny should not be to divide and to make war, but rather to work for peace and understanding. Truth matters. In the end truth rules.

        In the end there are no shadows. Everything comes into the light.

 

        See you down the trail. 

The True American Story

 

    We need to widen the lens and we need more daylight on America's original sin. Strong people own up to the truth. This might be the time.

        Confronting racial tragedy, an increasing number of Americans are warming up to the idea of reparations. In some places the process is happening.

    As the discussion unfolds we need to set the starting date beyond 1619. The 1619 Project, an ambitious undertaking by the New York Times and developed by Nikole Hannah-Jones, 

    "aims to reframe the country's history by placing the consequence of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the United State's national narrative."

    Movement conservatives and old fashioned white racists,  are apoplectic about the educational programs and intent of 1619. Too, they are foaming about an old academic idea, Critical Race Theory (CRT). More about CRT later. My complaint about 1619 is that it's myopic.

the first victims

    The starting date for discussions of reparations should be moved back to the late 1400's, certainly the 1600's as European colonialists and trading companies continued a genocide of indigenous people in addition to the slaving that would stain our national character and pervert our destiny. 

    To be fair, reparation analysis must encompass the formation of the American colonies and fledgling federal system of the United States when it engaged in criminal behavior, theft, fraud and murder of those who lived here.

    The kidnapping, buying and selling of Black people and the centuries of its damaging legacy must be accounted for, but our egregious national history began before that and is larger than just the abhorrent period of slavery.

    When talking about reparations, we must discuss the theft of the very land we call home and we should atone for the evil our forebears did. Native people, their culture and the consequence of their treatment must also be at the "center of our national narrative."

      The symbols painted on the stone stand above the middle fork of the Kaweah River in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. They are a legacy of the Potwisha who lived in a village near the stone. They were a subgroup of the Monache or Mono people who were there around 1350.

      A hike here roams through land also occupied by the Yokuts and the Tubatulabal people. They were 2 of the approximately 600 tribes that populated what we call North America. 

     When a lost Christopher Columbus landed in this hemisphere there were some seven to ten million people living north of the Rio Grande.

 

    Our hikes have taken us to "kitchen" areas. These are mortars where native people ground and pulverized or refined food materials. Today they make fascinating visits to history.

        In this space some months ago I suggested we set aside 25 years for a time of national reconciliation, beginning with years of establishing the full accounting of history and the airing of all grievances, through a series of hearings in every state. 

        Once the record is established, and the truth is known the nation would enter a time of discussion including deliberations of reparations. It is the view of this old reporter that is the only way we will heal and resolve our divide.

        Generations hence, knowing the full history, will be better prepared to live with truth and each other.

    

    President Biden said it perfectly:

    "Democracy is more than a form of government. It is a way of being, a way of seeing the world. Democracy means the rule of the people, the rule of the people---Not the rule of monarchs, not the rule of the moneyed, not the rule of the mighty-literally, the rule of the people." 

        It is true this experiment of government is in a fight for its life. Democracy is under threat from authoritarianism and autocracy. One of our major political parties has become an enemy of the State.

      The republican party is in the words of historian Jon Meacham "irrational." It is  without platform or principle. Republicans have displayed abuse to the democracy, a lack of honor and disgusting cowardice. The old GOP is long dead. This party is symptomatic of the rise of aggressive ignorance.

        Perhaps this is a way forward. Either the President appoints a Commission, or the House and Senate appoint Select Committees, or both options, to investigate the 1/6 insurrection. In either case, Republicans should be appointed to the Commission and/or Committee.

        At the bludgeoning of Mitch McConnell Republicans are trying cover up and ignore culpability and seriousness of the insurrection. I wish that arrogance and naked lust for power were criminal, but future generations will see him and Republicans for the deserters and Judas like apostates they are. An appointment of a few republicans could help guide a just investigation and would in the end trump the Trump cult.

        Senators Romney, Portman, Sasse, Collins, Cassidy or Murkowski would certify a non political inquiry.

    

    When Black, and Latin kids were my classmates, friends and teammates, CRT meant cathode ray tube, the vacuum tube that enabled the new wonder of television. There were racial disparities and the civil rights movement was nascent.

    By the time this class was in high school the Democrats and Republicans were debating and then voting on the historic  Civil Rights Act of 1964. It passed in the Senate 73-27, but the party break down is illuminating.

    46 Democrats voted for it-21 voted against it. (69%-31%)

    27 Republicans voted for it-6 voted against it. (82%-18%)

    The House Vote was 290-130.

    Democrats 152 to 96  (61%-39%)

    Republicans 138 to 34  (80% - 20%)

    That kind of consensus does not exist. That kind of Republican party no longer exists. Gone are the days when each party had wings of liberals and conservatives. For more than a half a century republicans have twisted themselves into a tighter and tighter knot of absolutists driven by their right wing. 

crt is the new boogie man 

    Today the conservative to right wing of politics has gone back to the 1970s and collected writings of legal scholars looking at race and the law and have bloviated those academic theories and thoughts into a monster. CRT looks at sociology and legal rulings in trying to decipher racism. It examines how white supremacy, and racism relates to power through the law and how that can be changed. Conservatives reject underlying academic notions of communication and sociology. Some  reject the idea of racism being imbedded into social custom and practice.

    When the Civil Rights bill was passed with bi-partisan support conservatives opposed it. They drew boundaries and resisted progress. Many have continued to oppose the law and the follow-up Voting Rights Act of 1965. 

    The John Lewis Voting Rights Act is blocked now by republicans. Voter suppression is a republican strategy.

    As ugly and in need of healing as is our racial and cultural quagmire today, imagine how awful it could be and how many grievances there would be if those 1964 and 1965 acts had not been passed. It took a fight then. It will take a fight again to align with the aspirations of our democratic republic. But the times are more perilous.

the work of truth

    There is no longer an honorable second party that believes in American justice and tradition. There is however a belligerency of ignorance and the insanity of a belief in a lie.

  

    Until we tell the full story, the true American story we will be condemned to live with the consequence of our lack of honor, and to suffer the fate of unrepentant thieves, liars and killers.

    81 Million citizens deposed an evil regime. It will take that and more to hold the House, build in the Senate and clean out the vipers in several statehouses. 

    We can hope that republicans can somehow find a path back to American values and purge the fascists, racists, and authoritarian anti-democracy, dictator craving and Russian manipulated puppets and lackeys they are.

    There is truth to tell and hard work to do. 

    See you down the trail.