Elections

 I am currently having a debate with myself about how (or why) to vote in our local primary elections. I have not seen any clear policy or performance statements from any of the candidates.

The campaign ads that show up in the mail or on the media are useless, being full of obvious lies and distortions of opponents' positions and records. I'm thinking there is an opportunity here.

After the uproar about lies and disinformation in the online media the companies owning the websites set some standards and identified or banned ads and posts containing clear lies and distortions. It seems to me the print and TV outlets should be similarly accountable. I realize that presents a challenge to existing business models, but surely the public good has to trump profits when democracy is at risk. 

One possibility to offset lost ad income would be tax-supported subsidies for real debates and statements of policy and performance in media outlets which adhered to some standards, much as the League of Women Voters have done for years. Perhaps there is a role for the Federal Communications Commission in this regard.

In fact, the FCC does already have fairness standards, so no really new authority may be needed.  The restrictions which online media put on lies and disinformation have been tested in courts and the verdict is that such actions are not violations of First Amendment free speech restrictions because the online companies are private entities, as are the print and TV companies. The newspapers, networks and TV companies will try to invoke the idea that they are journalistic enterprises, but that is a distinction without a difference these days.

Of course the underlying problem is that the Supremes decided corporations have the same rights as citizens and somehow that means they are free to buy politicians. Undoing all that would be a big leap forward for democracy, but I'm not holding my breath for it to happen.

(A recent Supreme Court decision addresses some of the issues, but it probably isn't the last word.)

Remembering

It seems appropriate and useful to set aside a day each year to honor soldiers who have died in the course of their service, as well as providing an opportunity for the surviving veterans to share their experience.  I am a little irritated, though, when some veterans' group spokesman inevitably says "We are doing this so people don't forget those who died". 

I always wonder who the spokesman has in mind who is so forgetful. Families and friends of the fallen certainly do not have the luxury of forgetting; they carry the loss and grief on through all the years of their lives. It also seems to me that it would be appropriate at the same time to recognize the suffering and loss among the non-combatants who are caught in the crossfire between warring sides; they always number in the thousands in any conflict and their survivors' grief is just as real. 

So let's pause to remember the costs of war including all the human suffering, and maybe also give some thought to the flawed attitudes and politics which lead to massive carnage with such regularity.

From Sandy Hook to Uvalde

 I was previously a gun owner.  I had rifles and shotguns which I used for hunting. I owned a pistol which I thought of as a means of self-protection, particularly when living in a remote rural area.  I knew quite a few other sportsmen whose gun ownership and use resembled mine; none seemed to represent a threat to themselves or others. I ultimately lost interest in hunting and sold my long guns. I also got rid of the pistol; its mere presence in the home seemed more of a threat than that posed by any imagined intruder.

The fellow I sold the guns to was a long time photographer-friend who became a gun collector.  He fit the pattern of others I knew and his weapons did not represent any kind of direct threat to others. However, he was also a member of the National Rifle Association.  When the Sandy Hook school massacre happened in 2012, he immediately sent out an email bemoaning the likelihood that the event would spark a movement toward restrictions on gun ownership.

I don't know if that email from my friend represented an original concept or a passing on of an NRA-inspired missive.  In any case, I was stunned that a smart and seemingly decent individual would have such a first response to such an awful human tragedy. It seemed to me he had given priority to a toy collection over the bottomless grief of the Sandy Hook families.

Looking back now on that time I think my friend's reaction was fundamentally based on fear. He had suffered the loss of his home in a fire not long before in which he had lost a lifetime of photographic work along with his cameras.  To some extent I think he had developed a sense of identity tied to his gun collection and he felt threatened by any public move toward gun restrictions.

In fact, I think fear is at the base of the acquisition of all non-sporting weapons including pistols and assault rifles.  Such weapons are seen as sources of power to people who have underlying feelings of fear and inadequacy in regard to the protection of self and family. Most people who own such weapons do not really represent a threat to society because the reality is that the likelihood of an actual need for such a weapon is exceedingly remote.  There are, however, aspects of our fear-based gun culture which do contribute substantially to public safety.

A fundamental issue, I think,  is an empathy deficit among the weapons enthusiasts which is stoked by fear and which trumps basic rationality and decency.  Such an emotional response is fertile ground for the NRA and the unscrupulous politicians who accept NRA support or fear its power.  Which all leads to half of the civilian-owned arms in the world (about 390,000,000) being in the United States. Given our rates of suicide and daily shootings attributable to accident, gang membership or issues of impulse control, a large proportion of that vast stockpile is obviously ending up in the wrong hands.

Optimism about the chances of substantial gun control seems naive given the current political climate. It does seem that some common sense initiatives like background checks, gun by-backs and red flag laws may have a chance to chip away at gun culture since they did work in Australia and New Zealand.  I wonder also if term limits throughout the political spectrum might offer some beneficial immunity to gun lobby influence.  

Georgia's Story

  Reading a book of poems in one sitting may seem improbable, but I think many besides me have had just such an experience with C.S. Merrill's book, O'Keeffe, Days in a Life. The painter's cult status limited my interest in her for a long time. Merrill's portrayal of the aging artist in expertly crafted vignettes cast O'Keeffe in a new light for me, showing her in the context of the northern New Mexico landscape which inspired most of O'Keeffe's work. Merrill's style seems perfectly suited to the task.  Here is one of the poems from the book which Merrill shares on her website:

Poem 58

  This afternoon we found

one unconscious hummingbird

had battered itself against

the studio window, took it

to the kitchen, made sugar water

carried it to the garden

it sipped and perked up alive

iridescent blue green chin

whirred off suddenly up.

  May, 1976

Remembering Anita Hill

 Clarence Thomas' statement about the leak of the Roe v. Wade opinion and its supposed effect on respect for the Court seems nothing but a reflection of the current Republican playlist.  The party leadership is going to great lengths to talk about the leak rather than about the real issue of the deprivation of human rights in the upcoming repeal.  They are counting on getting what they want from a court majority which has abandoned even the appearance of impartiality.  

Steve Benen in an article on the MSNBC website provides some perspective on the current court's direction and Thomas' contribution to that disgraceful performance.

Joe's Opportunity

 Elie Mystal in The Nation makes a good case for the possibilities of vigorous executive action to fight back against the repeal of Roe v. Wade.  He points out that Biden has been a tepid supporter of reproductive rights during his long career.  Joe could turn out to be a one-termer like his predecessor, so using his executive powers to fight back now may be an opportunity to leave his mark on history and counter balance some of the criticisms being leveled against him for not effectively combatting the big batch of ills currently plaguing the country.  Key to the strategy advocated by Mystal is the fact that Democrats have long exaggerated the limitations imposed by the Hyde Amendment on Federal support for abortion services.

To be or not

 Covid, Ukraine, Inflation, Immigration, Roe v Wade -- If Joe had his choice he likely would have picked some other time to be President.

CNN

One choice he is facing now is whether to continue onto a second term.  In spite of the likelihood the same problems and more will be with us a couple years down the road, there is no shortage of candidates to step into Joe's shoes.

Bernie has already said he was interested in the job if Joe jumps ship.

Warren is keeping herself in the news with spirited statements on the the big issues going into the mid-terms.

Believe it or Not, Hillary is still around.  She did a PBS interview recently, supposedly to promote a women's leadership group, but her comments on foreign policy issues sounded like campaigning.

Was it fourteen others on the stage with Joe during the run-up to the election?  We'll likely hear more from most of them, and probably some others as well.

Then and Now

 I am reading a book about Franco's postwar Spain, Entre Visillos, by Carmen Martín Gaite.  The plot revolves around several families whose daughters face a future in which marriage and domestic subservience were seen as the only acceptable choices. Of course, there are always rebels and many of them came from the families of the rightist winners of Spain's civil war. Franco's dictatorship did last a very long time, but fascist rigidity and suppression of opposing ideas could not ultimately prevail given the liberal gains in much of the rest of  Europe, along with the encouragement supplied by courageous feminist writers like Martín Gaite and Carmen Laforet.  It seems worth bearing in mind now that such repressive, regressive regimes always do nurture the seeds of their own destruction.

Mother's Day

 In almost every presidential election I can recall the country would have been better off seating the wife rather than the guy elected.

Jill Biden greets Olena Zelenskiy, Ukrain’s first lady, outside of School 6, in Uzhhorod, Ukraine, on Sunday. Photograph: Susan Walsh/AP

Real World Consequences

 The U.S.A. with its infinite delusion of superiority has seldom been able to take advantage of the hard-won lessons learned by others outside its borders.  A good opportunity, also about to be overlooked, is provided by a recent article in The New York Review of Books about the experience of Ireland in dealing with the consequences of abortion restrictions.

Universal Soldier

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYEsFQ_gt7c

The War Racket

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzG_4e8yGew

In case there is any doubt...

 I cited Varoufakis and Buffy Sainte-Marie in the previous post because I think they have realistic views on the conflict in Ukraine.  I don't believe there can be a winner in the war.  The Ukrainian forces may hold off the overland advance of the Russians for a time, but there is no way they can stop the rain of missiles from over the borders.  The massive barrage against the Russian forces enabled by the U.S. is landing on the territory of Ukraine.  The Russians will likely occupy large portions of the country, but they will earn the unending hate of the populace.