On Tyranny, by Timothy Snyder

 

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"When we repeat the same words and phrases that appear in the daily media, we accept the absence of a larger framework. To have such a framework requires more concepts, and having more concepts requires more reading."

Read this for the concepts, the clarity, the history, the norms and lack of norms, and the brilliant brevity. Read it for the table of contents, which begins with "Do not obey in advance," and ends with "Be as courageous as you can." Just read it. NOW.

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A Highter Loyalty, and some thoughts.

A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership by James Comey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The true takeaway from this book is that leadership is hard. Leaders have to make decisions between duelling worst-case scenarios, and they have to accept the probability of being misunderstood.

James Comey's book explains a lot about how his experiences as a lawyer and prosecutor led him to the decisions he made in the run-up to the 2016 election. Early experiences with organized crime taught him that some leaders value loyalty above all else. Other experiences, like his battles over surveillance techniques and targets, taught him that people are complicated, and that agendas can influence even the most celebrated leaders.

Reading the last part of this book, the part in which he explains his decisions about the Clinton e-mail investigations, led me to a greater **understanding and respect** for what he did. I understand now that we still do not know all of the factors surrounding all of the players in the Justice Department, the FBI, and the political circus we all experienced. We can judge, if we wish, based on our familiarity with the facts as they have been reported, but our judgments are going to be based on incomplete evidence. I fear that will not change, because some of what Comey tells us about the existence of still-classified materials is not likely to change anytime soon. And, perhaps, it's not relevant. We'll never know.

Recommended.

** I say "understanding and respect," not "agreement." I may never agree, or disagree. I do hope I'll never have to see so many competing influences colliding in a presidential election again - foreign interference, tribalism, polarization, disregard for norms, deafness to the concerns of those whose views differ from our own, unrealistic expectations, disregard for prior standards that kept our way of electing our president relatively stable for 250 years. It was hideous.



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basic humanity

Politics, cruelty, pettiness, and greed aside, each person who would vote to cut away at the Americans with Disabilities Act lacks basic empathy and foresight. If they call themselves religious, they lie: no religion advocates anything but assistance and compassion for the disabled. If they call themselves human, they lie. In the course of one split second or a process that lasts for years, they could become disabled. Any human could.

Do they think they are immune? Do they think it couldn't happen to them?

I read that one of the people who crossed party lines and voted for the bill did so because of a disabled family member. NO. That's not a good reason. You don't have to be involved in a painful family situation to care about other families. You just have to be a human being.

reading the unclassified report on Russian influence...

Just read through the Unclassified Assessment of Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections. With a highlighter. Stopping to correct my tendency to hyperventilate when faced with something so terrifying that I'm afraid my country is doomed. 

And now -

Wondering how Mr. Trump could say that the report proves that the hacking made no difference in the election results when the salient sentence is as follows:

"We did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcome of the 2016 election."

Lots to digest in this report, including how Mr. Trump dealt with the section on "Estimative language." Does he have the patience to understand that "Judgements are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact?" Does he understand that a judgement is based on sources and analysis, itself based on amount of/source of/consistency of data? 

I doubt it.

Back to hyperventilating.

Here's a link to the report itself.

a few thoughts on privilege v. entitlement

A lot is being made lately about privilege - white privilege, middle-class privilege, all kinds of privilege. A few of my friends and I took one of those Facebook quizzes a couple of days ago, this one designed to assign a number to your privilege. 

On a scale of 1 - 100, I got 33. Some of the questions were ridiculous. Did you go to summer camp? Well, yes, I went to day camp, but not because of privilege, but because both my parents worked and you can't leave a 6-year-old home alone all day. Education level - well yes, I have a M.S., but I paid for it by working through school, between school, and for 7 years afterwards. 

I'd been thinking about privilege since a very good friend listened to a story I'd told about wading into a huge high-school brawl in the library's parking lot when I was in my forties. She said I could get away with it because I had white privilege going for me. I said no, what I thought at the time - and now - is that I had tiny woman privilege: the brawlers wouldn't hurt a little person like me. My goal was to keep the kids from getting hurt -  not because I was the authority figure, but because I didn't want children to get hurt.

We agreed to disagree on that one, but it still has me wondering and extrapolating. Take Ivanka Trump, for example. When her father met with the emissary from Japan the other day, she sat in on the meeting -- I assume because it would never have occurred to someone so privileged that she wasn't entitled to. 

And there we have the dividing point between what one has by accident (for example, skin color) and what we assume is ours. I am beginning to think that the accusation of "privilege" needs to be tempered by what one has done with it. Have you taken a certain leeway that an accident of birth gave you and used it to take what you might not have earned, or expect to get whatever you want? 

Entitlement is poisonous. Privilege can be a tool. This thought needs some work, but I am intrigued. Thoughts?

American Nuremberg

It's been hard to avoid writing about politics this election year. Almost everything about this presidential election is hideous. 

What this book does, however, is remind us of why elections matter. A lot. My opinion, which may or may not be shared by the author, is that Bernie Sanders is the candidate least likely to continue the decisions that were made after September 11, 2001. You may have a different opinion, which is fine. But please, be informed.

American Nuremberg: The U.S. Officials Who Should Stand Trial for Post-9/11 War Crimes by Rebecca Gordon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

No matter how closely you have followed the political, military, and attitudinal fallout after September 11, 2001, you have never read such a concise, analytical, closely-sourced, and cogent overview as this. In clean, spare, unemotional prose, Rebecca Gordon examines how the stage for the Iraq war was set long before that catastrophe, as right-wing strategists plotted the demise of Saddam Hussein, admittedly a tyrant and a bully, in order to realign the Middle East in our favor - and Israel's. She traces how 9/11 changed how the United States justified and waged war, captured and tortured prisoners, lied and obfuscated in international forums, and misjudged how the war would change the dynamics of the Middle East, leaving no doubt about the way the war paved the way for the ongoing brutality of ISIS and the continued suffering of the civilians in its path.

Before examining 9/11, however, Gordon examines the history, philosophies, and history of war crimes, including details about the Nuremberg Trials that may be new to the reader, and may have foreshadowed how the United States would proceed. Early on, for example, both Churchill and FDR wanted to execute the accused without trials; Stalin insisted on trials to establish the legitimacy of the executions. Questions were raised about whether Allied countries that had used fire bombs and atomic bombs on civilians had the moral standing to judge Germany. And the United States fretted about alienating Germany, which was seen as an ally against communism and the USSR. The trials were held, but with unusual rules of evidence and procedure that may have been foreshadowings of how the United States would capture, judge, and indefinitely imprison "enemy combatants."

Gordon argues that rules of evidence, reasons for just war, treatment of prisoners, and the definition of torture slid neatly under George Bush's "new paradigm" after the horrors of 9/11. Our own laws (such as the War Crimes Act of 1996) were ignored, as was our signature on many of the Geneva Conventions (which are defined and explored thoroughly). How else could 180 prisoners suffocate in a shipping container on their way to a camp headed by United States Special Forces? Why would the head of the CIA be upset to hear that a White House spokesman had said that detainees were being treated humanely? How could we justify having prisoners sent to countries where they were raped, or using white phosphorus on civilians and combatants alike? Why has the United States refused to sign the portion of the Conventions that protects civilian medical personnel in armed conflicts?

Some of the details of how the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been waged (closely sourced, with authoritative, comprehensive footnotes and bibliographical references) that Gordon relates go beyond venal and sordid, beyond the horrors that any war creates. The actions and speeches reflect a widespread and disproportionate catastrophe, one that continues with every fleeing refugee and barbaric ISIS attack.

So what can we do, Gordon asks? Clearly, the officials and strategists, named and charted with great specificity, will never be tried as war criminals. The government of the United States does not even recognize the legitimacy of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Even more damning is her well-documented conclusion: "In the name of security, we have been terrorized by our own government... into giving up not only our own freedoms but our fundamental sense of human empathy."

That lack of empathy is the key to what we can do, says Gordon. We might take our cue from the government of South Africa, which created the Truth and Reconciliation process to acknowledge, with openness and truth, what had been done during the dreadful years of apartheid. Perhaps such an assembly could be convened here. Truth is what the United States owes to all of the victims of the wars in Iraq and its sequelae. In an ideal world, she says, we would end our use of torture, implement United Nations and Geneva Conventions, hold accountable the architects, and join the other 124 countries who are parties to the ICC. Working towards these goals would constitute the beginning of a true American Nuremberg.

This is a powerful book.

I received an advance copy of this book from the author in exchange for a fair review.


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Pay it forward = a family value

I have been alternating between seething and trembling because of the Republicans and Tea Party people who are calling Social Security a "Ponzi scheme" (or the equivalent), and because the people who shouted "Yeah!" when Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul, "Congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?" were not rebuked by any of the candidates on that stage. 


Whatever happened to the concept of Pay It Forward? 
For that matter, whatever happened to the concept of caring for society's  elders? 
Isn't that a family value?


Noam Chomsky has an answer that makes me sad, but seems true. Don't you hate it when that happens?

• Social Security is based on a principle. It’s based on the principle that you care about other people. You care whether the widow across town, a disabled widow, is going to be able to have food to eat. And that’s a notion you have to drive out of people’s heads. The idea of solidarity, sympathy, mutual support, that’s doctrinally dangerous. The preferred doctrines are just care about yourself, don’t care about anyone else. That’s a very good way to trap and control people. And the very idea that we’re in it together, that we care about each other, that we have responsibility for one another, that’s sort of frightening to those who want a society which is dominated by power, authority, wealth, in which people are passive and obedient.

welcome, my Luddite friend

My friend, Barbara Rich, has just started a new blog:




A liberal slice of tongue on wry.

Allow me to introduce her, in her own words:

• I have been a writer for most of my adult life, and a passionate liberal from the womb. I love words, kids, politics, activism, theater on stage and in life, being verbally outrageous. Justifiable outrage – and if not today, then when? – is just that: justifiable. I am a non-believer who marvels at the devout, “everything in black or white” evangelicals who equate the horror of Katrina with God’s punishment of New Orleans’ lifestyle. No, I do not put my hand on the TV to be cured of ailments, both physical and of the spirit. I’m a Luddite, and a grateful one: a friend has set up this blog for me. I love Barack Obama, and wish Hillary and Bill would find an isolated island where they could decide who would be forced to leave. Used to respect Bill Clinton; Hillary scares the hell out of me. Write to me. Visit me. Question and challenge me.

Her typewriter may be vintage (aren't they all?), the irony of a total Luddite who can not read her own blog does not escape her, but her thoughts and her heart are as deep and strong as can be.

thoughts on the 236th Democratic debate and (Not) Wordless Wednesday

What's that? There haven't been 236 Democratic candidate debates? Only 20? Impossible. I absolutely DENOUNCE your math. Oh wait, should I RENOUNCE it? Or maybe DECRY it? Or DISPARAGE?

I know -- I'll put the WHAMMY on it.

(For heaven's sake. I don't think That Woman would have been satisfied unless Senator Obama had said he wanted Farrakhan to be eaten by a chupacabra.) And what was with that whining about being asked the first question in a debate? If you're asked the first question, you get to set the tone. It's a Good Thing.

The debate wasn't a total waste of time. I swatched several lace patterns and had a nice cup of tea to soothe my sore throat.

(Not) Wordless Wednesday

Results may vary

I saw this on Gubbinal's blog. I love her comment about the results being useful in knowing which candidates to avoid!

(How, I wonder, do my views match Hillary's and Obama's equally at 74%? And, worse, how do my views match up AT ALL with Giuliani's? Odd. Disturbing. Maybe I need to rethink a few things...)

91% Mike Gravel
91% Dennis Kucinich
77% Chris Dodd
77% John Edwards
74% Hillary Clinton
74% Barack Obama
72% Joe Biden
70% Bill Richardson
40% Rudy Giuliani
31% Ron Paul
25% John McCain
22% Mitt Romney
19% Tom Tancredo
18% Mike Huckabee
10% Fred Thompson

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Lao-tsu for president!

Today's wisdom from BigHappyBuddha:

• Let yourself be open and life will be easier. A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable. A spoon of salt in a lake is almost unnoticed.

I meandered a bit (a bit!?) in yesterday's post, but the Buddha comes to my rescue. What are art, compassion, craft, friendship, and synchronicity but expansions of consciousness? Every purl makes the world a little larger. Every haiku. Every inky letter on every clean page. These things can change the world, and mindful attention can change ourselves.

If we feel small and vulnerable, we lose our sense of proportion and we over-react. Isn't that exactly what we have done in the Middle East? We responded to the brutality of September 11, 2001 by causing a much greater harm to a country that had nothing to do with the attack. We poured tons of salt into the wounds we ourselves inflicted.

Lao-tsu knew better. From the Tao Te Ching:

• Governing a large country is like frying a small fish. You spoil it with too much poking.

I hereby nominate Lao-tsu for president!

Ms. Tigerpaw speaks of ch-ch-changes

In 2008, I resolve to seek...
... courage to follow my creative path with my pen and with my needles. I want my pen to write many letters, journal with honesty, continue writing the fictions it has begun, and practice compassion when I lose heart.
... continued learning for my needles. In 2007, they first knitted cables and (oh joy!) socks! In 2008, they will learn how to work Fair Isle, continue to knit for charity, create clothing for a very special baby, and be open for adventure.
... opportunities to express gratitude to my husband, my family, and my friends.
... new friendships in knitting groups, book discussions, and (perhaps) political activism.
... health, through exercise, attention to medical and emotional issues, fewer carbs and more protein, and (shudder) some quality time in the kitchen.
... inner peace, through meditation, mindfulness, gratitude, attention to synchronicity, and compassion.
... world peace, through whatever means possible or necessary.

Specifics? Well, take the quality time in the kitchen. My husband and I deserve better than pasta and steamed vegetables and left-over restaurant food. Although he is not a vegetarian, he enjoys tofu dishes, and it would be a mitzvah for us both if I expanded my culinary skills.
Fair Isle? I want these mittens with a truly bizarre hunger, and I shall knit them.
Etc.
I have lots and lots of specifics that I will journal about today - how many pounds I want to lose, the chapters I need to "snowflake" (thanks, Anna!) to make progress on my novel, how I'll get my checkbook balanced, specific knitting goals (including a pair of socks every month), plans for the piles and drawers and shelves that need to be decluttered to make room for thought in my home. My pen and a new notebook (thanks, Janet!) will be busy.
Etc.
But for today, for here, I want to focus on the path, not the instruction manuals and tools, because what I need more than anything is a sense of direction. I've been disorganized, dazed, cluttered, depressed, frightened, and reactive for far too long, especially in the last few months. If I can see where I want to go, it'll be possible to get there.

** Ms. Teabird Tigerpaw is my avatar on Second Life**

even though I can't swim...

... I could not resist this book. I have lived all of my life on Long Island, but - I can not swim. (Literally, dozens of people have tried to teach me, including Red Cross instructors, camp counsellors, and my grandfather. I'm not meant to swim.) I can not tolerate more than a minute or two of sun. I can't even type the word "ferry" without becoming queasy. I can not do anything nautical except delight in sea air and lighthouses.

However - how could I resist a book with patterns for starfishes and sea horses, two of my favorite creatures? And kelp? And turtle tracks?

************

Political musings.... if Dennis Kucinich looked like Mitt Romney, would he still be considered "unelectable"? ... Is there any excuse whatsoever for Hillary's camp to have mentioned Obama and cocaine in the same sentence? (Variation: does anyone believe that this happened without authorization from the top of her campaign?) ... Valerie Plame, Abu Ghirab, weapons of mass destruction, destroying the evidence of Americans using waterboarding, all of the souls who have died in Iraq by American hands, Blackwater... what exactly would it TAKE to impeach this administration? ...

So let me get this straight : Paris Hilton goes to jail, but Scooter Libby doesn't ????

Paul Begala got it right - hop over to the Huffington Post to read his entire comment (and others, equally fine). An excerpt:

...But if you're rich and right-wing and Republican, George is a real softie. As George W. Bush demonstrated in giving Scooter Libby a Get Out of Jail Free Card, he is only compassionate to conservatives.

What does it say about America in the age of Bush when Judith Miller spends more time in jail over the Valerie Plame smear than Scooter Libby?...