Dictatorship Isn’t Pretty

Listening to the Roundtable a few days ago I heard Vera Eccarius-Kelly explain that dictatorship is much worse than people understand. She couldn’t be more right, but I don’t know how many got her point, so I want to repeat and reinforce it.

Dictatorship is about loyalty – not justice or decency. Loyalty to the guy above gets protection from people complaining below. Worse, complaining is an offense – more than the absence of the First Amendment, complaints are treated as sabotage, as disloyalty. So if something goes wrong, you have to keep quiet.

It’s not limited to so-called policy. Something’s wrong with the water, sewage, garbage collection, a pothole. Your child is being bullied at school or the police ignored violence to family or friends. KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT. Complain, and the so-called public official would likely have his hand out. You’d feel lucky if all he wanted was money, not your wife, son or daughter. Life under dictatorship can be hell – not figurative hell but hell on earth.

There are no rules in dictatorship. Officials don’t feel bound by rules – rules of decency, justice, rules of any kind – it’s all about what they can get away with. People working for dictators often live off graft, corruption and intimidation – their power over you is more than bad service in a restaurant. And beware, in a dictatorship, criminal organizations can always outbid you.

Republicans complain about the “deep state.” They’re complaining about rules. Bureaucracy is about carrying out rules. Rules in a democracy are based on legislation – not arbitrary orders and demands but what bureaucrats are supposed to do.

In a democracy, we can object and try to get rules changed, to complain that they are unfair, unjust, whatever. But big shots don’t like rules – who are you to expect a big shot to obey a rule? So they go after the “deep state.” But then everything is up for grabs.

Have you noticed where the refugees come from? We’ve been complaining for years about refugees from central America. The migrants are fleeing from dictatorships without working rules – the dictators and their minions function like the Mafia or other gangs who say to everyone around, “everything you have is ours.” They go after the children; they go after the women. They demand so-called “protection” money from the businesses and they strip out people’s assets until there’s nothing left but getting out – if that’s even possible.

That’s why they’re complaining at the border; that’s why they’re willing to do almost anything if we’d just let them in. They’d do almost anything just to live with rules – rules they can count on.

Dictatorship is not a walk in the park. It’s dangerous to go to school or the grocery store. It is NOT about the rights our Constitution guarantees to “justice … domestic tranquility … the general welfare … [or] the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” Dictators are dangerous to their own people no matter how good they sound when they start.

— If you think I’m on target, please pass it on. For the podcast, please click here. This commentary was scheduled for broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, on December 12, 2023.

When O’Connor Gored the Republic

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor just died. It seems poor form to criticize the departed. But she might as well have participated in Dred Scott v. Sanford, the worst decision the Supreme Court ever handed down and one of the triggers for the Civil War, because her vote was crucial to another decision just as bad. O’Connor, Rehnquist, Thomas, Scalia, and Kennedy all voted to substitute their presidential preferences for the election results in 2000. It has been standard and proper for courts to conduct recounts when elections are challenged and enough votes are at issue to change the result. The Florida Court was doing that. And they were doing it the right way – recounting the whole Florida vote by a single set of rules. But this group of so-called justices decided it was OK to take the election into their own hands lest Mr. Bush be embarrassed by the results – Scalia was quite explicit about it but there was no other real explanation.

Having taken control over a presidential election, it seemed anything was possible. And it was. The decision changed who could be nominated to the Supreme Court. We’ve been trying to have a code of Supreme Court judicial conduct but that decision was self-dealing – deciding who would be on the Court with them. In the short run it was Roberts and Alito. With Thomas and the Trump trio – Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett – this is the crew that struck down Roe v. Wade after telling Congress it was a super precedent. And it’s the crew that has been deciding, with great consistency, that there is nothing to be done about the election chicanery that allows a Republican voting minority to dominate the Democratic voting majority and turn over control of the House to a small minority even of the Republic Party and constantly threaten to close down government so that their small legislative majority could dominate despite the Democrats significant national support. That’s part of what Bush v. Gore got us. And they also made it much more difficult to prove or get relief for discrimination. If you aren’t allowed to prove discrimination, how are you going to get equality?

By installing Bush, Bush v. Gore also got us the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, ill-conceived wars based on fooling the American people about the logic. Thank you Bush v. Gore for installing a president who would start major wars that achieved nothing and installed new members of the Court who would do what Republicans could not do at the ballot box. That is the result of one crucial decision that fails to respect the political process.

This is not a court we can live with – it will instead destroy us all. That’s why I’ve been calling for tearing down everything we can about the Court – it’s budget, building, staff and the statute that let’s them control their own docket.

I have met the late Justice O’Connor. She was here for a conference I ran in 1991 and gave the keynote address. She had written a fair amount about the subject of that meeting. To some extent, she changed what she wrote about it afterwards. But her vote in Bush v. Gore has done incredible damage. She might as well have been Chief Justice Taney in Dred Scott.

— If you think I’m on target, please pass it on. For the podcast, please click here. This commentary was scheduled for broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, on December 5, 2023.

Climate Progress

Bill McKibben is not only one of the most eloquent voices on climate change but a founder of one of the largest and most important worldwide organizations trying to stop destruction of the climate we depend on. I have gone to hear him in multiple venues, am a subscriber and supporter and could summarize his latest post but I think it would be better if you took a look for yourself at his latest, for which here is the link.

Thanksgiving Blessings for America

Our daughter, who lives in Cincinnati, is recovering from an accident. So we, our son and his family, went there for Thanksgiving this year. We had Thanksgiving dinner at a wonderful old Cincinnati hotel. At an appropriate point I had us focus on what we’re thankful for and started by saying that I’m grateful for the intelligence to have proposed to Jeanette fifty-six years ago. It’s a biological truism that none of us would’ve been the same without Jeanette, but she’s has been a great blessing to us all.

Then I pointed out that our families came from lots of places. Part of Jeanette’s family got here in the first boat after the Mayflower. My grandparents came from three different European countries and my mother was sent here at the age of eight to live with sisters who’d already come.

This country treated us well. It wasn’t easy but our families put us through college, as we did for our children. Everyone’s doing fine in our chosen fields and have strong ties of friendship to Americans of all kinds.

There are lots of people who say “I’ve got mine so I don’t care what happens to you.” We don’t feel that way. We’re grateful to America and want to pay that back by supporting its future. Without taking credit for what others did, immigrants built this country from the railroads to the restaurants, served in the military and fought in its wars, strengthened its universities, its science and its culture. We want a better and stronger America for ALL to enjoy – those who trace their families back to the Dutch, British, Spanish and Native founders, those for whose freedom our ancestors fought to keep making America better, and those who more recently found a haven here. We don’t take America for granted. Immigrants don’t take America for granted.

But too many seem to want to take it all back. Instead of honoring the genius of America’s principles, they’d choose who’s good enough to be American based on who their parents and ancestors were.

The Constitution prohibits hereditary titles, makes everyone born here citizens by birth, and repeatedly and deliberately includes everybody by referring to “Persons” and “inhabitant[s],” not people of specific ancestry or even people who have been here a given number of years, as the basis for representation and for rights.[1] But prejudice against immigrants has been growing.

The Constitution prohibits a “religious test … as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States,” prohibits any “law respecting an establishment of religion,” protects “the free exercise” of religion, and respects religious sensibilities by coupling the requirement of an “oath” with the alternative of an “affirmation.”[2] Those are the only references to religion in our Constitution, but there is rising sentiment to restrict by faith the rights granted by the Constitution.

White Nationalists dishonor what America was founded to accomplish, making clear that the so-called “right” is wrong and the left is right.

So let’s give thanks to the real America protected by the Constitution, with all the Amendments, consecrated “far above our poor power to add or detract” by “The brave men, living and dead, who struggled” at Gettysburg and after. And for those who seek to substitute for elections held under the Constitution, and substitute for public officials who uphold its rules and restraints, let us dedicate ourselves “to the great task remaining before us … that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

— If you think I’m on target, please pass it on. For the podcast, please click here. This commentary was scheduled for broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, on November 28, 2023.

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[1] Art. I, secs. 9-10; Amend XIV, sec. 1.

[2] Art. VI, sec. 3; Amend. I.

Number 1 Threat to Israel

I share many people’s concern about the survival of the state of Israel. The threat of its demise would be tragic, not only to Israel but to the survivors and refugees of the Holocaust and their descendants. Loss of Israel would expose world Jewry to intensification of antisemitism. These are serious issues that go way beyond ordinary international politics.

But it is important to recognize that the biggest threat to Israel is the failure of the Netanyahu government and its supporters to understand the limits of international support. Israel cannot survive without international support. But international support is not and will not be automatic. If Israel’s government can be tricked into self-destructive behavior, Israel will be pushed into the sea.

Many people seem to understand the trap that Hamas laid for Netanyahu, a trap aimed directly at cutting off international support for Israel by provoking Netanyahu into behavior that the world would condemn, not support. In that respect Hamas showed that it does understand world politics in a way that Netanyahu, his government and supporters do not. That is and will be tragic.

The world, and many in this country, have not supported Netanyahu’s efforts to kick Palestinians out of their homes and lands on the West Bank so that Israel’s so-called ultra-conservative religious extremists could settle there. By constant pushing for yet more settlements, Netanyahu has kept that issue on the front pages. And the settlers themselves have harassed and shot at Palestinians on the West Bank. Not a good background for Israeli efforts to defend itself in ways that result in mass casualties of civilians.

Many are trying to push Biden to do more. They think that American support for Israel is locked in. But that misunderstands American politics just as it misunderstands world politics.

There are a few million Jews around the globe but well over a billion Muslims and many of them – fine, caring, decent people – live here too. They easily include Jews and even Israel in their wishes for peace, prosperity and good will. But they expect decent behavior in return. The left wing of the Democratic Party is already pushing back over the number of casualties in Gaza. If Biden jeopardizes support from too many such groups, we may end up with an occupant of the White House who has been encouraging this country’s armed antisemites.

As they have for people of all origins, America’s founding principles have welcomed Jews for centuries. America has been the major destination for Jewish refugees worldwide and Jews have built solid, peaceful, productive lives here. Jews have participated in everything from the Revolution to the Civil Rights Movement. Only a fool would risk America’s welcome and the possibility that it would be replaced by armed extremists who have already been attacking not only individual Jews but Jewish and American institutions.

So, for me, Netanyahu and those who think like him are the number 1 threat to Israel. Hamas gets the prize for immoral behavior, but Israel’s extremists get the dunce cap for stupidity. And America gets the prize for decades of standing on the sidelines and watching everything unravel.

It’s time for Israel’s strongest supporters to wake up, open their eyes, deal with the Middle East in a constructive way and take seriously the fact that equal justice for all has to be part of the solution. Thanksgiving is a good time to start.

— If you think I’m on target, please pass it on. For the podcast, please click here. This commentary was scheduled for broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, on Nov. 21, 2023.

Praying for Joe

Like most of you, we will be gathering soon for Thanksgiving. Like many of you I will be giving thanks for a very loving, decent family. All good things in my life have sprung from my wife’s decision to tie our lives together. I have been enormously blessed.

I will also thank the Lord that I have not been cursed with a job that required me to live in the White House – in these perilous times that job is too hard for any human being. The world is falling apart and everyone seems to want to come to America – both a complement and a curse. We can’t do it and we can’t stop it and we care about the people too.

We demonstrate and work for peace but much of the world sees war as the only solution. We don’t want other countries to be able to overrun peaceful people, and we see our own security in respect for each other’s borders, especially those who are friendly toward us, but the only way to prevent it requires weapons – in the Philippines, Taiwan, Ukraine, the countries of the European Union, and, somehow, to end wars in the Middle East too. America’s fascination with guns brings that contradiction home.

We work for prosperity, fight for the homeless and against food insecurity, but inflation threatens when too many people have jobs that could provide homes and food.

We want people to have jobs, homes, food, and we want to respect what buildings and services each community wants to allow for itself. We want more people doing things for us – nurses, doctors, hospital staff, police, pilots, teachers, preschools with teachers and staff, psychologists and psychiatrists helping to keep us safe and well as comfortable, farm laborers to keep us fed sustainably and cheaply, but we don’t want to let anyone cross our borders to do that work. Bless the president for taking on those contradictions.

We want to protect our children and grandchildren and our fellow Americans in the path of floods and fires from global warming but want someone else to bear the price. We want to bless the oil and the coal companies and we want to shut them down.

While no human being can handle it all without error, I recognize Joe Biden’s patriotism and that he has been devoting every bit of his strength, energy, and experience to the welfare of the American people despite all our contradictions. I pray that the Lord may grant him good health and the strength to persevere, the wisdom and skill to strengthen America and make our lives better, and, if it is not too much, Lord, to ask that he may be able to bring us together.

— If you think I’m on target, please pass it on. For the podcast, please click here. This commentary was scheduled for broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, on Nov. 14, 2023.

Inauguration Day could be a national disaster

Tom Nichols in the Atlantic lays out what Trump plans. We need to close ranks to keep him far away from the White House and the tools of power.

Michael Walzer on Hamas’ obligations

An excellent article by a noted philosopher from the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. One of Walzer’s points is that “No good society, no liberated state, can be produced by denying life and liberty to the ordinary folk….” He also lays out how Hamas, as governors of Gaza, ignored the welfare of the citizens at every possible point and the only ones paying attention to to their welfare have been other countries, including, until recently, Israel. Well worth reading.

Blame and Action over Palestine

Discussion over Israel and Palestine is largely about blame. There’s plenty to go around – for cruelty, murder, mayhem and stupidity, for refusal to come to the table and refusal to accept the rights and the very existence of others. There’s blame for this seventy-five years war, reminiscent of more than a century of wars that Europe fought over religious difference except this could be a millenium’s war since the Crusades – and this over a small piece of desert, existential for Israelis but fought over as if everything depends on exclusion of the other. Jews have been kicked hither and yon since the birth of Christ who’s probably horrified over what some, who claim to be his followers, did to the people of his birth. And both Israel and surrounding Muslim states have been unwilling to accommodate Palestinians. So perhaps this is an existential battle for everyone. Israel exists because the Jews faced an existential battle against Hitler’s Fascists, and refugees had difficulty getting into [quotes] “civilized” but anti-Semitic nations. All that blame curdles my heart but brings us nowhere closer to a solution.

I’m not sure who wants peace. Israel said it does but Hamas hasn’t. Israel might have outfoxed Hamas by playing more nicely with Palestinians, especially those on the West Bank and the P.L.O., as I’ve talked about on these airwaves. But I’m not sure if that’s still possible. And in light of repeated wars on Israel by the Arab nations and the P.L.O., I’m not sure if it was ever possible.

All the nations involved have been enablers of this conflict. Presidents Carter and Clinton came close to deals between Israel and the P.L.O. but neither put teeth into it by making it the price of our support. For years, we told Israel to stop uprooting Palestinians for Israeli “settlers” or squatters to take their land but it never went beyond talk. Instead we’ve tried to convince Israel that American support was unconditional. From examining the diplomatic records, some scholars concluded that American defeat of Iraq upended the power balance in the Middle East, deepening the rift between the U.S. and Iran and making the Middle east harder to handle. Obama’s nuclear deal was miraculous but Trump’s cancellation of the deal made Iran an intractable foe.  

I think America is the one country that could have laid down the terms of a decent deal and made American aid and support conditional on it. Sure, that’s big power politics but the parties don’t seem able to resolve their problems themselves. I’m not sure domestic American politics would have supported it, but if we don’t get it done, American politics could flip with disastrous consequences for both Israel and the Palestinians.

Finally, I want to turn to the attacks against Jews stemming from reactions to the Israel-Hamas war, half a world away, by asking whether support for Palestinians make demonstrators and attackers complicit in Hamas’ murder of noncombatant men, women, children, even infants? If not, Jews are no more complicit in Israel’s actions either. By all means share my objections to Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians, but that doesn’t make Jews guilty of misbehavior. And if you support the rights of other minorities, then you must discredit stereotyping and prejudice because of people’s heritage or faith. Plus, Jews in this country have been major and consistent supporters of the rights of others, so driving them away is poor politics. Swinging at folk because of their heritage is unworthy of Americans, and the principles we’ve fought for.

— If you think I’m on target, please pass it on. For the podcast, please click here. This commentary was scheduled for broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, on November 7, 2023.

Tiptoeing Around the Violence of Trump and the Gun Wrongs Movement

A recent article in The Atlantic makes some of the connections between Trump, the gun-wrongs movement and insurrection clear. I tried to call attention to the threat of insurrection from the gun-wrongs movement in my 2016 book, Unfit for Democracy. Chapter 8 opens with a review of what we already knew about the threat of violence from those arming to fight what they called “tyranny.” The article in The Atlantic draws explicit connection between Trump’s declaration that “I am your retribution,” Confederate, yes Confederate violence and the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. As with many of the shooters, including the recent one in Maine, the killers are telling us their intention. We do ourselves no favors by turning aside and trying to ignore their rantings. Trump is serious and his supporters are cheering his most violence language. This isn’t about supporting hunters or urging people to cheer or applaud at a rally. This is a deliberate effort to start an insurrection and to arm people to do it.