Andy Kim Gives Me Hope

The Politicians May Be Catching Up to the People

Asbury Park, June 9, 2023, 6:52 pm.

On Thursday, February 19, I went to a meeting with Andy Kim, who is one of the two senators that the voters of New Jersey have sent to Congress. I've always liked him - I've been following him for quite a while - but I'd never met him. He was holding a town hall in Asbury Park, where my connections have become oddly deep - this has something to do with the Jersey Girl I married. Anyway, two friends picked us up - we tumbled into the back seat - and off we were to St. Stephen's over on the west side of Asbury Park. This is a simply beautiful new church on Springwood Avenue in the historically black part of Asbury. There was a good crowd - it turns out people had come from all parts of the state. Lois's friend Kristen Foca, who is currently Senator Kim's acting state director, greeted us warmly, and soon I was shaking hands with Senator Kim.

It turns out that Senator Kim has held 92 town halls in New Jersey as a congressman and senator. I had always had the impression that senators like to hang out with bank presidents and corporate executives. Scoop Jackson used to be called the senator from Boeing. This evening was different, perhaps because Senator Kim had been a congressman before he became a senator. 

I was very impressed, from a technical point of view, with the structure of the town hall. The senator spoke for a while about issues that he was concentrating on. Then he handed the podium to Kay Harris, head of our local historical society, who, it being Black History Month, spoke about black history in Asbury Park (it's quite a history). Then the senator came back and spoke some more on issues, and then he took questions. He did something I've never seen before. He asked for two questions. He wrote them down in a notebook. And then he responded. And then he asked for two more questions. I've never seen this before, and I think it's brilliant on a number of levels. 

But let's not get buried in technique. One of the questions was why he voted to make Kristi Noem secretary of Homeland Security. He said, "You deserve an answer," and he wrote in his notebook, and in due course he answered.

He said that he had hoped to establish a lifeline to Noem. Looking back, this may sound a bit odd, but the normal way of doing business in Washington is to open lines of communication with people who can help you. And he knew that, with or without his vote, she was going to be confirmed. 

It was pretty obvious, at the beginning of the second Trump administration, that the ordinary rules of doing business had become irrelevant. Many voters saw this. But it's clear, looking back, that much of the commentariat did not see it. And the political class was still clinging to its familiar ways. 

Then Senator Kim said something interesting. He said, "I made a mistake." And he explained his thinking and why, in retrospect, it was wrong. A very honest, candid man. At the end he received thunderous applause.

Vaclav Havel wrote, years ago, that the politicians often lag behind the people, because they are so wound up in their political world, while the people are living in the real world.

But here's one politician who has caught up. And I'm very happy.

See also How the Dam Breaks.

Stephen Miller Must Go

A Story from Ukraine

Philadelphia, before it was too late.

I wasn't going to write this story, but way too many people in this country - particularly in Congress - are still unable to grasp the enormity of the evil we are currently facing.

Father Patrick Desbois is a French Catholic priest who literally wrote the book on the Holocaust by Bullets. He found many, many unmarked mass graves in Eastern Europe, and he found old people who had vivid memories of what happened. 

As I've noted before, "A key aspiration of any fascist regime is to create a state where every individual is morally compromised."

Here is one story from Ukraine: 

"The presser," Ternivka, July 23, 2007 

... Petrivna was sitting in her courtyard with two friends, on a little wooden bench against the white cement wall. Her tale began very peacefully, without apparent emotion: "A 'punitive' German commando came into the village to kill the Jews ... The columns of Jews were taken toward a great pit just outside the village. The German gunmen were placed above the pit." ... The Jews had to walk down into the pit - a slope had been prepared for this on one side - and they then had to lie down on the bodies of their dead comrades before being assassinated by a bullet in the head or in the nape of the neck. 

Suddenly, Petrivna stopped talking, her body twitching bizarrely. She said in a single breath, her hands moving up and down: "You see, it's not easy to walk on bodies," trying to express that the ground was moving. In a flash, I realized she was trying to convey her unspeakable experience, her suffering. Very calmly I asked her: "You had to walk on the bodies of the people who were shot?" She replied: "Yes, I had to pack them down," making the same gesture with her arms. I thought I understood: "You had to do that at the end of the shootings, in the evening, or between each volley of shots?" Seeing that I was beginning to understand, she told the rest of her story: "After every volley of shots. We were three Ukrainian girls who, in our bare feet, had to pack down the bodies of the Jews and throw a fine layer of sand on top of them so that other Jews could lay down." 

"Barefoot?" I asked. She replied "You know, we were very poor, we didn't have shoes. The Germans had seen me in the fields in the morning. I was tending a cow. They said to me: 'Go to your mother's house, get a spade and come back.' When I got to the house, my mother said to me: 'Go, if you don't go, they will kill you!' The other requisitioned girls were also looking after cows. We were all poor." 

I could never have imagined that the Nazis would requisition young Ukrainian girls to press the bodies down with their bare feet, as if the bodies were grapes on harvest day in wine country. 

The so-called "pressers" had to put sand on the bodies so that the next Jewish victims could lie down more easily. 

As I began to envision what had happened, I asked her "Did you come out of the pit between each shooting?" "Yes," she said. "The German commander gave us an order to go down into the pit and another order to come out. All together, we had to run into the pit with our spades, pack down the bodies with our feet, put down sand and then come out all together. Many Jews were only wounded ... We had trouble walking on them." ... 

Several times, Petrivna mentioned her Jewish classmate, who sat next to her at school. She saw her in the pit, naked. She saw her arrive and then shot, before she had to trample on her corpse. ... At the end of the interview, Petrivna led us to the pale blue metal door with a warm smile. That evening when we got back into the van, our eyes were full of images of these three village girls running down into the pit, trampling on the bodies, throwing sand, and coming out again ... trying to catch their breath before the next shooting. All around them, Germans had been guarding the site with their dogs. The other Jews had been waiting, naked and terrified. 

- Father Patrick Desbois, The Holocaust by Bullets, 2008, pp. 83-86. 

After more than half a century, Petrivna finally got to tell her story.

__________

Like Trump, the typical Trumpie is stupid and grasping. (Think Kristi Noem.) Stephen Miller is smart and focused. He has also studied fascism carefully, and, given the chance, he will execute the entire playbook. Act accordingly.

Broad street, Philly, still before it was too late.

Here is some background on Ternivka.

See also The Democrats Need to Fight the War and Wounded Souls.

Anouska De Georgiu Speaks

Ben Meiselas Interview 

44:35 -

"I think the stronger reason, which is also the reason that he was fighting the release of the files, and the reason that the files have been released in the way that they have, is because there are more powerful people, who may be people that he knows, that he really can't let down, who cannot be exposed. And I think it's those people that may be driving the situation."

Here's the full interview.

See also J'Accuse.

Let Them Carry ICE-icles

Take Their Guns Away

Mussolini with a few friends.

Some people have suggested that ICE and its cognate covens on thuggery (the border patrol etc.) should not be called Gestapo. I agree that the analogy is not perfect. In its full flowering, the Gestapo was the German national police force. Having one national police force was actually a huge change for Germany, which had traditionally seen law enforcement as a local issue.

There are good reasons not to have a national police force, and the Gestapo provides many examples. But it was a police force. ICE etc. are paramilitary thugs. A better analogy would be the squadristi who helped Mussolini to power. They're also called the blackshirts because they wore black shirts on duty. They were supposed to wear khaki trousers, but like ICE they were generally dressed in motley from the waist down. I don't recall seeing any blue jeans in the old pictures, but they were clearly catch as catch can. 

The blackshirts had firearms, but their favorite weapon was the manganello, a type of cudgel. They just loved to beat the crap out of people they didn't like. Occasionally, they would alter their approach and take a victim to the town square, where they would make him drink castor oil until his bowels turned to water. Other humiliations include home invasions, where the entire contents of a house would be thrown into the street, sometimes from upper floor windows. Valuables of course, like gold coins and silver flatware, would simply disappear.

I think the indiscipline and depravity of ICE etc. match well with the activities of Mussolini's black shirts. But I think the term Gestapo is more useful in our modern context, because I think the average  American has no idea what a blackshirt was. They don't know much about the Gestapo either, but they do know the Gestapo was evil. And I think that is the point people are trying to get across.

And here's the first thing you do with a paramilitary force that is out of control: Line them up and take away their guns. Then, whatever you do, don't disband them. Put them in their barracks (any disused military bases will do) and make sure they stay there. Then you can sort things out at your leisure.

Oh - and take away their cell phones.

See also Jim Crow Was a Failed State, What Happened in Ferrara? And one of my personal favorites: Somotomo.

Deer Trails

They're a Start, Not an End Goal

Deer having lunch.

The first roads in America were built by deer. As they wandered about the forest in search of food, they would over time find the most efficient way between their bedrooms, or "bedding areas," and their dining rooms, or "feeding areas." 

When they're moving, deer tend to single track, which means they place one hoof directly in front of the other. This means that, as they followed one another, again and again, from bed to breakfast, along the same route, a well-worn path would evolve that was very narrow.

In due course, native Americans, also looking for breakfast (possibly a deer), would follow the deer paths and make a slightly larger trail. When the Europeans arrived and started building roads, these tended to follow the lines laid down by the Indians, and before them the deer.

We don't generally think of colonial roads as being wide, and in comparison to the roadways of the interstate highway system, the old roads were not wide. But they were generally wide enough to allow a farmer to drive his wagon from farm to town, where he could sell his produce and purchase manufactured goods, and perhaps have conversations with other human beings.

I mention all this because deer paths make a comeback in Philadelphia every time we get a few inches of snow. As the snow accumulates on the ground, sturdy townsmen go to their basements, search and find their snow shovels, and go make paths on the sidewalk. 

The shoveler's initial path will follow the trail already laid down by passersby as they trudge through the snow on their way to some destination - work, home, lunch, a cup of coffee. Some homeowners are actually quite willing to let this "deeresque" path be the path on their sidewalk, and leave their shovels in the basement.

Our intrepid passersby, of course, do not shovel snow. They step on it, and grind it down until it turns into ice. This ice-pavement is uneven and slippery, and the path is very narrow - often a single track. If you have any balance issues at all, you will start to widen the path by stepping in the snow alongside, creating a wider, perhaps "Indianesque" path.

It's better, of course, to clear a broad path on the sidewalk before the soft, fluffy snow gets turned into a jagged mess of ice. 

The snow you're shoveling has to go somewhere. I recommend something called the "verge," which is the area of the sidewalk near the curb, where you also generally can find trees and street furniture like signposts and the occasional mailbox, perhaps even a trash can. It's also where the trucks plowing the traffic lanes should be putting their snow. 

You can also pile snow next to the front wall of your house, but be careful not to block the vent from your clothes dryer.

How wide should your path be? I'd say wide enough for a wheelchair or a baby stroller - maybe a double baby stroller. Why? Let me tell you a story.

The worst deer paths, and the most persistent, occur at crosswalks. The snow bank at street corners can often be several feet high - the trucks plowing the traffic lanes for the cars and trucks and buses generally place a lot of snow at the corners. After all, you're plowing two streets at this point, not just one. 

Last Thursday, I announced that I was going to go out and clear some of these high-walled deer paths. And I did - although after discussion with my wife I promised not to go beyond the corner of my block. 

In fact I was only going to do one corner, although I was also going to free the storm drain that was buried under three feet of snow and ice. As I was chipping away, I happened to look up, and across the street, what should appear but two middle aged women accompanying an older woman in a wheelchair. So I crossed and dug out the deer path there. As I worked, we chatted. I got to explain why I usually carry a spade as well as a snow shovel. (It's better at clearing ice. You're likely to break your snow shovel if you use it to hammer ice.) When I was done, one of the ambulatory ladies offered me a tip. I declined with thanks.

The next day, the City came with equipment and cleared the corners in my neighborhood. (The crews also plowed at least some of the little streets and even made some improvement in the bike lanes.) So maybe I can leave my tools in the basement, at least for a while.

See also Snowbound.

Snowbound

My Neighborhood Is Coping Valiantly 

I live in the Rittenhouse Square section of Philadelphia. We haven't been getting much snow in recent years, but the occasional snowfall has often been disruptive because many homeowners have seemed blissfully unaware that they are supposed to shovel the sidewalk in front of their houses.

That seemed to change this time around. Areas in my neighborhood where I was accustomed to seeing sheets of ice, sometimes deceptively covered with snow, were instead clear shortly after the snow stopped falling. 

What caused this miraculous shift? I don't know. I'm just grateful.

There's still a lot of snow on the ground, and it's going to be there for a while. I'm sure there are some laggard blocks somewhere, and the intersections can be dicey (wheelchairs and baby carriages are going to have a lot of trouble), but Rittenhouse is walkable.

(The bike lanes are of course a mess. The worst I saw was the lane running down from the Chestnut street bridge to 22nd street. But this is supposed to be a happy story, so we'll save the bike lanes for another day.)

(The problem with the intersections has been around forever, and strikes me as a tragedy of the commons issue. Local homeowners may not feel responsible because the snow blockage is largely in the street. And the snow plow guys are busy clearing the streets for vehicles. So the street corner is a no man's land. The same issue seems to arise with bus stops. Nobody is responsible for clearing the snow that stands on the curb and disrupts any movements across the curb. Who will look after the liminal space?)

(My wife just returned from walking a six-year-old to school. She said the intersections were brutal, but she used a different word. Actually several different words.)

(So I guess I'll take my snow shovel and my spade - there's a lot of ice now - and spend the afternoon clearing corners. I may even uncover a few of the storm drains.)

See also Sweeping the Bike Lane, This Does Happen.

Never Give Your Opponent the Battle He Seeks

Look for an Asymmetric Response

Nelson Rockefeller interacting with constituents, 1976.

Turning the other cheek is not a strategy that young men, well-fueled with testosterone, are likely to find appealing. 

There is another way that does not play into the enemy's hands: The asymmetric response. 

At the battle of Cannae in 216 BC, Hannibal responded to the frontal attack from the Romans by outflanking them on both flanks. This approach was replicated at the battle of Cowpens during the American revolution.

Responding to a frontal assault with your own frontal assault sends you against your enemy's strongest point.

In this context, our goal in Minneapolis should be pin the enemy's main force by holding the line and harassing him at every opportunity. One thought: A wildcat strike at certain hotels might force those hotels to shut down.

The counterattack needs to come elsewhere. I see two main avenues: the Epstein files and the Affordable Care Act. Both of these should converge as demands during the upcoming government shutdown. And we should be advertising that right now, and widely. The dilly-dallying about whether we're going to shut down the government has got to go away right now. The message needs to go to the people holding the line in Minneapolis: You have Trump pinned, his numbers are cratering, even Republican senators who aren't up for reelection are looking fondly at the exit signs. Hang on: We're going to get the Epstein info out no matter what. The ACA subsidies will come back. And ICE will go back to their barracks and stay there. You owe this to the people fighting on the front line.

There are other issues, like impeaching corrupt judges. I do not understand why Democratic consultants insist that the people cannot walk and chew gum at the same time. These are all components of an overall strategy to kill fascism in this country for once and all. They are related and can be explained in a clear, logical way.

And frankly, it would give more variety to the chants we use when we're marching. I'm actually getting a little tired of Whose streets? Our streets! I think the people of Minneapolis should be chanting, in addition to Ice Out Now, something very simple like Epstein! And maybe something a bit more subtle, like Trump Finger-Flipper!

Rockefeller never did live down the bird he flipped in Binghamton, N.Y. People talk about it less, now. But it's still in living memory.

See also The Democrats Need to Fight the War, How the Dam Breaks, Circling the Drain, J'Accuse!