The British Post Office Scandal: How Not to Handle One

“The worst miscarriage of justice in British history,” it’s been called — “an affront to justice.” Hundreds of innocent people convicted on false evidence. Not a 16th Century witch hunt, but one in the 21st.

This true story was dramatized in a multi-part Masterpiece Theater production, “Mr. Bates vs The Post Office.” A disturbing window into an aspect of human nature.

The British Post Office introduced a new Fujitsu computer system called “Horizon,” for local postal outlets, run by private individuals (“sub-postmasters”), mostly as adjuncts to other businesses like little stores. Horizon started showing widespread account deficits. The Post Office’s “help line” was useless in sorting this out (and lied to callers that they were alone having these problems). Hundreds were forced to repay amounts ranging into tens of thousands; stripped of their licenses; nearly a thousand criminally prosecuted for theft and fraud. The P.O. insisted their contracts made them completely responsible. Many lives were destroyed. Several committed suicide.

When this began to unfold, you’d think someone high up in the P.O. would say, “Wait! This makes no sense! Something’s messed up here!”

But no.

A question that came up in the dramatization was — where did the money go? Not to the sub-postmasters, many being bankrupted by the repayment demands. But a question that somehow never arose was — how could those tiny postal outlets even have turnover in such large amounts in the first place?

It made, indeed, no sense at all. There was never anything to indicate that any money was actually missing. The “deficits” were just figments of Horizon computer glitches. That should have been obvious from the get-go.

Yet the Post Office muckety-mucks went into a bureaucratic crouch, refusing to entertain the possibility of anything wrong with the system, insisting all the prosecutions were perfectly proper. Oblivious to reason and the injustice. This continued for a decade. They went through the motions of an internal investigation, an outside review, and a mediation process for victims — all jerry-rigged to bury the truth and produce the desired results. Officialdom in all its gory glory.

It was a human unwillingness to acknowledge error. They also wanted to protect the P.O.’s “brand” from any opprobrium. Perhaps arguably understandable had there been much chance they’d succeed. But with hundreds of victims all across the country, the crap was bound to hit the fan somehow, eventually. Damaging the “brand” far more than an honest handling of the matter in the first place would have done.

They should have quickly realized something was wrong, and gotten out in front of it, doing everything possible to make things right. Instead they doubled down, violating the first rule of holes: if you’re in one, stop digging.

I’ve previously written that all human sins are ultimately rooted in arrogance. And reviewed a book titled Assholes – A Theory, also centralizing arrogance. The “Horizon” story is illustrative — behavior quintessentially arrogant. Asshole behavior.

Being fallible, I make mistakes in my own business. I try to correct them. But government bureaucracies have little impetus to do so, free to behave arrogantly instead. This is a key element of a traditional antipathy toward governmental power.

In the end of a very long and tortuous story, the sub-postmasters, led by the indefatigable Mr. Bates, won a sweeping judicial victory. That “affront to justice” quote came from appeal judges, voiding some of the many criminal convictions. The real criminals, it was now clear, were the Post Office bureaucrats.

Led by Paula Vennells. She almost seemed like a human being — almost. At the end, she was shown in church (she was also a pastor — a woman of God!) at last apologizing to the legions of people who’d suffered so cruelly. Yet still disclaiming criminal responsibility. And: her lips didn’t move. The contrition was only in her head.

Vennells was not prosecuted. Instead, awarded a CBE (“Commander of the British Empire,” a step below knighthood). Vennells later renounced the CBE, a gesture without effect; but King Charles has revoked it.

Yet even now the story’s not over. After the TV drama aired, the BBC News had a brief item quoting Vennells labelling the false numbers spewed out by Horizon not “bugs” but “exceptions” — to make them sound “non-emotive.”

The hole so deep no light can reach the bottom.

Why Not a Trump-Trump Ticket?

The ass-kissing wannabees for Trump’s running mate —like Elise Stefanik, Tim Scott — even Marjorie Taylor Jewish Space Laser Greene — are making a ludicrous spectacle of themselves.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (a Melania look-alike trying to be the new Sarah Palin) seems out of the running, having bragged in a book about shooting an unruly puppy (rather than bother with training. And don’t mention the goat). Guess she figured on a macho vibe, playing to Republican proclivities for cruelty and guns. But she overshot the mark. Or maybe MAGA world hasn’t sunk that far . . . yet.

Anyhow, the VP pick must be a tough call for Trump, feeling betrayal when his previous one, Mike Pence, refused to join his coup to overthrow the government.

But here’s some free advice: why not a Trump-Trump ticket? With Donald Junior for VP.

After all, a chip off the old block; that apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

Qualifications? Schmalifications. Donald Junior has what it takes to be Veep in a Trump administration. Spouting shameless lies smearing all opponents, with 150% loyalty to the creep-in-chief. He would not have gone wobbly like Pence on January 6.

Of course dynastic succession is de rigueur for authoritarian regimes. North Korea’s on its third generation of their beloved Kims.

It would be a perfectly balanced ticket, with a Trump at each end. The cultists can double down, wrapping themselves in Trump-Trump flags and signs and bumper stickers.

Trump-Trump-Trump-Trumpity-Trump.

Drain the swamp!

The Campus Protests and Radical Chic

Israel’s Gaza atrocities unfolded over months with scarcely a whimper of campus protest. Then suddenly all hell broke loose. Why now?

Well, the weather is nicer now.

But seriously, who’d want to march outdoors or sit in a tent with temperatures below forty?

Am I suggesting some shallowness there? Israel’s Gaza actions merit the outrage. Yet I can’t avoid a somewhat jaundiced view toward the protests.

What comes to mind is a decades-old locution: radical chic. Coined by writer Tom Wolfe about upper class white dilettantes lionizing the likes of the Black Panther party. Maybe that was actually supportable. But they didn’t really know what they were talking about. Just nevertheless thought they were being cool.

Today’s campus demonstrators may have romanticized protests past, and were just looking for a suitable opportunity to reprise them. The fact of making a stand on something being more important than what that something is.

Footnote: The Economist’s Lexington columnist mentioned that these demonstrators often make a thing of pronouncing “Gaza” in the Arab way, much like 1980s predecessors embraced an exaggeratedly spanishy pronunciation of “Nicaragua” (Nee-ha-RAH-hua). I inquired of my daughter, who’s studied Arabic, and “Gaza” sounds something like HRUH-zhuh.

Meantime, the issue has deep historical roots of which most protesters appear ignorant. Yet it’s readily slotted into the standard woke-left paradigm of nasty white(ish) Western(ish) colonizing oppressors versus noble non-white(ish) “indigenous” peoples. A perspective these protests almost seem to parody.

With the obligatory censoriousness toward other viewpoints deemed impermissible. Thus a scheduled commencement speech by America’s UN Ambassador was cancelled. But elsewhere a student’s valedictorian address was barred because she happened to be Muslim and the school poohbahs feared controversy. Over-reacting being endemic.

Of course, for the protesters, it’s good guys versus bad guys. In the real world most conflicts are not right-versus-wrong but right-versus-right (much harder to assess). And much as Israel (its present government at least) strives hard to earn its bad guy chops, Hamas is not exactly good guys. A nuance that doesn’t often come through in the protests.

And it’s not as though this is the only bad thing happening in the world. Not a whisper of campus protest greeted Russia’s Ukraine invasion (a true case of right against wrong). Nor regarding what’s happening in Myanmar, Sudan, or Xinjiang. Guess none of those fitted the woke narrative like the Gaza story does. And the difference is that the students might imagine themselves conceivably influencing U.S. policy, or even Israel’s. Whereas protesting about any of those other crimes would be whistling in the wind.

And what is it with the anti-Semitism? Slamming Israel’s government is one thing, targeting Jews quite another. The student protests seem to lose it when the one veers into the other. It’s actually a well-known phenomenon that when people form a mob their moral compasses go haywire; opinion within groups moves toward that of their most extreme (and vocal) members. And a comprehensive historical ignorance (so common today even among the notionally educated) doesn’t help. A shockingly high percentage of these students, in surveys, think the Holocaust was a myth. Even more say they don’t know.

Unfortunately all this presents campus administrators with impossible dilemmas. Somewhat their own fault after years of upholding a political orthodoxy with free speech for only those mouthing it, while demonizing any dissent as equivalent to violence. Now they’re faced with real violence by the very voices they’d coddled. Freedom of speech does not extend to that. And we see that “hate speech” isn’t after all (as if we never knew) exclusive to the right. It can be a fine line between letting these protests run amok and overreacting with yet more violence.

I believe they’ve drawn the line clumsily. All those cops with billy-clubs. What were those Lords of Academe thinking? Had they never heard the words “Kent State?” Well — at least this time it hasn’t been national guardsmen with guns.

Artificial Intelligence Explains There’s No God

ChatGPT, a leading Artificial Intelligence entity, is very easy to use. Just google it, go to the site, and sign up: very simple and free. Then there’s a box where you can ask it anything. Just for fun, I asked it to write a blog post on whether God exists. Here’s the (unedited) result:

Introduction

In a world filled with diverse beliefs and spiritual ideologies, the question of the existence of God has been a source of profound contemplation for centuries. Atheism, the rejection of the belief in gods or a higher power, has gained prominence as a rational and empirical alternative to religious doctrines. In this blog post, we will delve into the arguments that challenge the existence of God, exploring the philosophical and scientific perspectives that have led many to adopt atheism.

The Absence of Empirical Evidence

One of the central tenets of atheism is the demand for empirical evidence to support any claim, especially one as significant as the existence of a deity. Unlike scientific theories that rely on observable evidence, the concept of God often lacks the tangible proof that skeptics seek. Critics argue that if God exists, there should be concrete evidence or at least a reasonable basis for belief. In the absence of such evidence, atheists maintain that the most reasonable stance is to withhold belief until proof is presented.

The Problem of Divine Hiddenness

A compelling argument against the existence of God is the problem of divine hiddenness. If a benevolent and all-powerful deity exists, why is there a lack of clear and universally accessible evidence of this presence? Atheists posit that if God wanted to establish a personal relationship with humanity, the signs of such a relationship should be evident to all, rather than being shrouded in ambiguity and subjectivity. The diversity of religious beliefs around the world further adds to the perplexity, as different cultures claim exclusive access to the “correct” understanding of the divine.

The Role of Science

Scientific advancements have reshaped our understanding of the natural world, providing logical explanations for phenomena that were once attributed to the supernatural. As our knowledge of the universe expands, the gaps that were once filled by religious explanations are continually narrowing. Atheists argue that the scientific method, with its emphasis on empirical observation and testable hypotheses, offers a more reliable and consistent framework for understanding the world than relying on ancient scriptures or divine revelations.

The Problem of Evil

One of the age-old challenges to the existence of an all-powerful and benevolent deity is the problem of evil. If God is omnipotent and benevolent, why does evil and suffering persist in the world? The existence of natural disasters, diseases, and human-inflicted pain raises questions about the compatibility of a loving God with the harsh realities of life. Atheists argue that the prevalence of suffering is more in line with a world governed by natural processes and random chance, rather than a world overseen by a caring deity.

Conclusion

While belief in God is deeply personal and often rooted in cultural, familial, or experiential factors, atheism provides a rational and evidence-based alternative perspective. The absence of empirical evidence, the problem of divine hiddenness, scientific advancements, and the enduring problem of evil all contribute to a robust argument against the existence of God. It is essential to engage in open, respectful dialogue to explore these ideas further and foster a better understanding of diverse perspectives on the profound question of the divine.

[End]

AI is faulted for occasionally “hallucinating” false information. But on this subject, at least, it seems pretty clear-headed. It’s human religious believers who are hallucinating.

Two Chinas are Better than One

“Unification brings strength while division leads to chaos,” declares China’s State Council, referring to its aim of absorbing Taiwan. “This is a law of history.”

No. What’s a law of history is that wars of conquest never pay.

China obsesses over “reunification” with Taiwan, as somehow required for its national apotheosis; the “One China” dictum to which everyone must bow down.

But how about: Two Chinas are better than one.

Is that naive? Why can’t China simply realize it would be better off in peaceful friendship with a brother neighbor Taiwan? Reaping all the benefits of mutually advantageous trade and cultural exchange. A reorientation that would also gain China enormous global goodwill. In contrast to invading Taiwan, at stupendous cost, making China a pariah state, to add just a tiny fraction to its territory and population — devastated by war, that will never submit peaceably to their rape.

In fact it’s a law of history that such conquests never stick. Always eventually coming undone.

A nation’s greatness isn’t gauged by how many square miles and people it controls, but by how good their lives are. And doesn’t plain morality count for something?

Yet China’s regime has heedlessly whipped up a jingoist frenzy for “reunification” that would be hard to dial down. Lying that Taiwan’s people too thirst for reunification, blocked only by nefarious conspiring by China’s enemies (mainly America of course). While in reality most Taiwanese are terrified of subjugation into China’s Orwellian dictatorship. Hong Kong an immediate object lesson.

I am no dreamy pacifist, against all war. Some things are worth fighting for. Mainly opposing aggression like what China threatens vis-a-vis Taiwan. And Russia’s against Ukraine. America and Europe, in failing to aim for Russia’s defeat (achievable at comparatively modest cost) have been shamefully squeamish, cowardly even. (Republicans blocking Ukraine aid were worse. But, despite them, we’ve now managed to prove Churchill’s adage that America will always do the right thing, after exhausting all the alternatives.)

Ukraine also exemplifies the same laws of history. What could Russia possibly gain from crushing Ukraine, to justify the vast cost, in lives and wealth, and international opprobrium? To acquire an embittered hostile population? And here too the invasion’s rationale is a tissue of absurd lies; here too ridiculously blaming America and other notional enemies — when in fact it’s Russia’s bloody conduct that’s made enemies. After the Cold War, we’d tried to help Russia join the world’s civilized nations, but Putin took it elsewhere.

Israel’s Gaza war likewise embodies the same historical paradigm. Really another truly insane, inhuman, immoral war of conquest. The “self defense” excuse long since become moot. The supposed aim of annihilating Hamas is delusional. Israel’s actions, heartlessly imposing vast human suffering, can only serve to multiply the ranks of its hate-filled enemies, while shredding its international standing. Where is the sense?

Many deem our species incorrigibly prone to such aggression. But I see instead a basically peaceful human character, most people wanting nothing to do with violence. (I haven’t personally encountered any in decades.) Yet we can be manipulated, with psychological buttons pushed by exploitive leaders, for their own purposes. And people can be sucked into mobs that behave in ways they never would individually. Xi, Putin, and Netanyahu all have self-serving reasons for their transgressions. When will we learn to punish such harmful demagoguery, rather than succumbing to it?

Republicans on Abortion: “Full of Shit”

That’s a quote from The Daily Show. Actually applies to today’s Republican party in toto.

Daily said it following a clip of Arizona senate candidate (and election denier) Kari Lake declaiming she wants women having the widest possible health care choices. After she’d previously applauded a measure banning virtually all abortions.

On that subject, Republicans are like the proverbial car-chasing dog who catches it. For decades they thought opposing abortion was a great issue for them — until they finally prevailed, and are flummoxed to find most voters horrified.

So here’s Trump, bragging about his getting Roe v. Wade overturned, yet somehow trying to make himself sound almost pro-choice, saying it’s really just letting each state decide, something everybody wants. Except they don’t. He’s (as ever) full of shit.

The Supreme Court’s voiding abortion rights, so blatantly motivated by religious and political zealotry, has accelerated plunging citizen trust in our public institutions. (Trump’s presidency made the whole government look like a feckless circus; and his vote fraud lies have shredded confidence in our election systems.)

Look — abortion is a difficult moral issue. Pro-choicers err in deeming it merely about a woman’s own body. Not so simple when there’s another life inside it, for whom she has some responsibility, especially in the later stages.

But meantime Republicans posture as the party of “freedom,” the word almost a mantra. Well, freedom for men maybe. Women they want to control — with no freedom for pregnancy health care. Often not even to abort unviable fetuses that might kill them. Just one way Republicans want government regulating behavior they dislike. Freedom for gays? Let alone trans people? Fuggedaboutit.

Then we even have the loony Alabama Supreme Court ruling, full of Biblical bloviating, declaring embryos created during in-vitro fertilization human beings. So no freedom to utilize IVF. That went over like a lead balloon, with Republicans scrambling to tell voters, “Oh no, we don’t mean that.”

Another thing: they’re all for the rights and welfare of unborn children. Once born, not so much. Alabama — typical of Republican fetus fetishizing states — ranks at the bottom regarding the welfare of kids no longer fetuses. Issues of poverty, education, nutrition, health care, etc. “Pro-lifers” only seem to care about children in wombs, not those pesky ones outside.

Meanwhile too, these “pro-life” Republicans are fine with 30,000 Americans killed annually by guns for which they refuse to allow any sane regulation. Yet they prattle “law and order.”

And after months screaming that Democrats were trying to interfere with the election by barring Trump from the ballot (invoking the 14th Amendment’s insurrection clause), now in at least two states, Alabama and Ohio, Republican election officials are trying to use legal technicalities to keep President Biden off their November ballots!

Such fundamental dishonesty and hypocrisy pervades today’s whole Republican party. With all that “stolen election” rubbish, and so much more. As The Daily Show succinctly put it: they’re full of shit.

The American Dream: A Fairy Tale?

The New York State Writers Institute’s annual Film Festival is always a great event. It’s free, and this year’s included nice breakfast and dinner buffets! (And I got to meet Jacqueline Bisset!)

The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales was produced by Abigail Disney — Walt’s grandniece. Its theme was corporate greed at the expense of workers. Abigail Disney has become a crusader on that.

Not so long ago, battling for a $15 minimum hourly wage was a big thing. Disneyland workers were getting $15; being bumped up to $18.25. But there’s been inflation. In that Anaheim, CA locale, the film asserted, a living wage would now be $24.

So, as vividly shown, those workers struggle to make ends meet. One single gal, Artemis, searched endlessly for affordable housing, finally finding something entailing a two-hour commute. (Nasty confession: I judged her unattractive, only to realize her face must be molded by constant stress about her circumstances.)

The City of Anaheim apparently deems Disneyland a big asset, for all the tourism it attracts. No surprise there. So the City financed construction of a huge parking garage near the park. Then leased it to the Disney company for $1 a year, enabling Disney to reap tens of millions in parking fees annually. WTF??

More profit for the company; less for the City to help its residents. And the pandemic provided occasion for Disney to shed tens of thousands of workers, further fattening the corporate bottom line. It’s stock price has duly marched upward.

None of this does anything for the workers — who in fact have more toil, due to the fewer hands. While Bob Iger, Disney’s CEO, is paid hundreds of millions.

Corporate culture wasn’t always so greed-filled, the film argues, pointing to Disney’s own past, when labor unions were stronger. But it invokes Evil Geniuses (a book I’ve reviewed, whose author Kurt Andersen appears in the film) as showing how America’s richest labored to change that culture to feather their nests.

A particular villain in the film is economist Milton Friedman, who held that a business’s only responsibility is to earn profits for its shareholder-owners. That might indeed sound ugly. However, Friedman was not arguing for profit for profits’ sake. Instead, that profits are a gauge of a corporation’s real benefit to society: producing goods and services people want, at prices willingly paid, to enhance their quality of life. Of course corporations wouldn’t do that without profit.

That’s what makes a free market economy beneficial for society. Encapsulated by Adam Smith’s famous line: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest.” And Friedman was arguing that anything distracting a business from its main job of providing desired goods and services would detract from the general welfare.

The film casts Iger’s pay, and corporate profits more generally, as coming at the expense of Disney’s workers. But again, we can’t expect any business to give us desired things without its profiting. What’s a reasonable level of profit can be argued.

But here another aspect of free market economics comes in: competition. If businesses must vie with each other for consumer dollars, with price a key factor, that tends to drive down prices to levels allowing just enough profit to keep them going. I have friends always saying grocery owners should just cut prices and take less profit. In fact that’s a highly competitive market where profits are, in consequence, just a tiny percentage of cash register receipts.

I don’t know what that number is for Disney. But even Disney, too, faces intense competition. Consumers have numerous other entertainment options.

All that said, however, there’s much evidence that in the big picture, America’s economy has become less competitive, with accordingly higher profit levels. The Abigail Disneys and Kurt Andersens of the world think it’s because government has let corporations get away with more. Yet there’s another factor of government putting its thumb on the scale to reduce opportunities for competition. That’s certainly true in the vast realm of governmental licensing requirements, fundamentally anti-competitive. “Free market economics” is not the problem; freer would be better.

Greed is a mis-used word. The film inevitably quoted Gordon Gekko. It’s simply human to want more for oneself, to improve one’s life. Mostly that’s a motivator for efforts that benefit society (per Adam Smith). What’s a problem (bad greed) is seeking gain unethically, at another’s expense.

As for Iger’s bloated pay: yes, it’s unreasonably excessive, Disney should be able to hire a perfectly fine CEO for a small fraction. And most of what’s now paid to Iger could instead be used to give workers more, without reducing overall profit. CEO pay in general got out of hand due to perversities in how it’s determined, full of conflicts of interest and self-dealing, a system guys like Iger all exploit because they can.

The left’s picture is of a very unequal America, with its Iger types hogging undue shares of its wealth, while the masses, like those portrayed in Disney’s film, suffer. It showed, for example, rising demand for handouts from a local food bank — one striking scene was an endless line of cars awaiting their turns.

But, dare one say, those people have cars. Not to dismiss their undoubted challenges, but poverty in America isn’t what it used to be. Government help is a big reason. More would be justified; but let’s not forget that it’s a relatively modern thing.

And it’s certainly not true that the “the masses” suffer deprivation. The far bigger phenomenon is mass affluence. Most Americans are part of a huge middle class doing a lot better than those in the film. And while there’s much written about a “shrinking middle class,” a lot of that is people rising rather than falling out of that class.

Also much invoked is supposedly rising inequality. But here too the true picture is complex. And while it’s fiendishly hard to parse the data, there’s much evidence that, in the pandemic and its wake, wages in the lowest echelons have actually risen faster than in the rest of the economy — reducing inequality.

But perhaps all this is easy for me to say, having been very lucky, with a resulting great life. I feel for the people in that film. They have it tough, and make great efforts. They are good people.

What the Hell is Happening to America?

The American character has ever been one of positive spirit, optimism, self-confidence. Thus conventional wisdom in politics was that positivity always beats negativism. Exemplified by Ronald Reagan’s sunny persona defeating dour rivals. How distant that picture now seems.

Departure from it might be understandable were there some profound national trauma pushing us onto a radical, disruptive path. Something like, say, the Great Depression. Yet even that did not upset our civic applecart. While it did spur some fringe movements, our basic political culture stood resilient. Testament to the goodness of what America had built.

A democracy where election outcomes are respected and accepted by all sides, with peaceful transfers of power, in a spirit of goodwill. Such civility characterizing all our political processes. Agreeing to disagree, often coming together in pragmatic compromise, actually tackling problems, generally respecting opponents. Intolerant of misconduct, vulgarity and falsehood. All in all making our public culture something genuinely noble. Francis Fukuyama has written how such democracy serves our deep need for “thymos,” having one’s human dignity respected. This has been America’s great achievement.

Rejecting that longstanding salutary ethos, traducing this nation’s most essential character, makes today’s Republican politics tragically baffling. It might, again, be explicable were there some severe system shock. But there’s nothing remotely like that.

Nothing like the Great Depression. Or, for that matter, the Civil War, which we also actually got past with remarkably little discombobulation of our political culture. The pandemic was traumatic, but Trumpism preceded that, and normality returned pretty fast. Now the economy boasts strong growth, rising wages, record low unemployment, stocks up and inflation coming down.

And yet what is a national crisis today is so many voters being so pissed-off and disaffected by who-knows-what that they want to burn the house down. Though they don’t see it that way themselves, instead imagining they’re “patriots” somehow saving the country. From a Biden administration that actually merely embodies the kind of politics-as-usual that prevailed for generations. They’d elect instead a sociopath who literally tried to overthrow the government.

And while there’s a feeling our politics is broken, requiring drastic medicine, they empower the very people most responsible for the breakage. And while despite the good economy some are struggling, they’ll be hurt more than helped by Republican policies.

Sure, there are grievances and cultural divisions. Whites who feel a loss of caste position, traditionalists unsettled by acceptance of divergent lifestyles, fear of immigrants, resentments against educated elites, etc. But there have always been such societal discords, yet they didn’t shred our civic culture or provoke such nihilistic political pathology. A sizable Republican contingent now even justifies political violence.

A key aspect is divorcement from reality, embracing a bizarro mockery of it. Like rejecting the reality of January 6, and the 2020 election’s legitimacy. Trump said it was stolen, based on nothing whatsoever, just because his damaged psyche could not accept losing. Any fool could see that. Yet Republicans refuse to.

My Lawn Sign

Why doesn’t their hateful, destructive behavior make them unelectable? For many voters the whole political picture is just a fuzzy blur, they can’t discern true signal from noise, and not even January 6 provides clarity. Meantime Trump’s pantomime of “strength” is psychologically bedazzling as against notional Democrat “weakness.” When it’s actually derangement versus sanity, depravity versus decency.

Too many take for granted our democracy, without much understanding of it, or its vulnerability to what’s afoot. Some see Trump as more symptom than cause, just exploiting passions already extant. Maybe. But such a perfect storm of badness can do immense damage. He already has.

So we’re sleepwalking off a cliff, poised to witlessly throw away America’s quintessential goodness, making this a much darker country. Indeed, Trump loves dictators and will put us on the dark side globally. A world whose Putins are untrammeled won’t be good for us. “America First” will be ashes in our mouths.

This nation is still full of wonderful people. How can we be sucked into such evil?

Eclipse Apocalypse: Or, A Day at the Beach

You watch, for over an hour, through your protective glasses, as the Moon’s dark disc progressively occludes the Sun. Darkness descends; the temperature drops. Finally only a crescent sliver remains.

Then none. Nothing now visible through your glasses. As instructed, you remove them . . .

And wow! The Sun is a black circle, in a dark sky, edged by coruscating brilliant white. A picture so counter to nature, the mind rebels.

Then the “diamond ring” as the first glimmer of the Sun’s re-exposed edge, a globule of light, bursts from the slowly moving shadow.

So far following the script. But now, something totally unexpected: the “diamond” suddenly exploding into a blazing fireball engulfing the whole Sun. This couldn’t be happening.

It’s understandable how daytime darkness would have unnerved earlier peoples. That fireball would’ve scared their pants off. Again, I never expected it, and some research has failed to confirm this as a known eclipse phenomenon. There’s some indication it may have been an optical effect as my eyes were adjusting. I did fairly quickly avert my eyes and put my glasses back. Yet I know what I saw in that moment, and it was quite dramatic.

Anyhow, I will probably never view the Sun quite the same again.

My wife and I had scoped out Tupper Lake, a few hours distant, as our best viewing bet; paid for a parking slot, and hotel room (exorbitantly priced) for eclipse night, to avoid likely heavy traffic exiting the totality zone. Her sister Catherine came from Waltham, MA, to join us. A last minute addition was my friend Sherrie Lyons, a science writer, whose other plans had fallen through.

We prudently left Albany shortly after 6:00; apparently the route north got congested a bit later. We stopped for half an hour along the way to reconsider our plans, checking weather info, and decided on Plattsburgh instead. Arrived there before 10:00; the free parking lot at Lake Champlain’s beach still had space.

It was chilly and windy, so I didn’t relish a whole day outdoors, but the gals insisted we stake out spots on the already crowding waterfront. It eventually warmed up, becoming a pleasant “Day at the Beach.” Mostly blue sky, with only a slight cloud haze. The eclipse began at 2:14.

After, we got to our Tupper Lake hotel with no traffic delays, and even, to my surprise, found a very nice and uncrowded restaurant for dinner (the Belvedere in Saranac Lake). Again avoided traffic returning to Albany next morning.

Meantime Sherrie and I had taken a long walk along the beach, joined by a lovely family (the wife a CBS News anchor). But it was delightful being among so many people, making a communal experience. It’s a great virtue of human civilization and culture that we thusly come together, sharing in such good spirit.

Was Saving the Union Lincoln’s Big Mistake?

America has been blessed with some leaders of great nobility and vision. Washington and Lincoln stand out. Lincoln almost godlike in his depth of character and wisdom. It’s especially remarkable that such a fraught moment in our history brought forth a Lincoln rather than some exploitative demagogue (like you-know-who). Summoning our better angels rather than our demons.

Lincoln’s guiding light was saving the union. He once said that if that entailed ending slavery, he’d do it; if it required keeping slavery, he’d do that. His Gettysburg address cast the Civil War as fighting for democracy, the union being equated with democracy.

But was that really true?

Southern states had precipitated matters by seceding. “Let them go in peace,” some Northerners were saying. But not many, and it doesn’t seem Lincoln seriously considered it. Yet couldn’t “government of the people, by the people, for the people” have endured in a smaller union?

America’s South is, in many ways, a different country. That was certainly true before the Civil War, and remained so long after (as a Faulkner reader would know). More lately it seemed the South was finally normalizing, getting with the program, exemplified by removal of Confederate monuments. Yet look how much sturm und drang accompanied that.

And look at politics. Many Southern whites vote Republican because they see Democrats as the party of Blacks. Still not truly accepting their being countrymen; still, in the depths of their psyches, fighting the Civil War.

And if the eleven Confederate states had not been bludgeoned back into the union, America would be a different country. Dare I say a better one? Persistent southern mentalities are obstacles to progress along a waterfront of issues. Guns, to name one. Absent those eleven gun-loving states, we’d have long since enacted sane firearms laws, and gun violence would not be such a curse.

So maybe losing the South would have been good riddance. The rest of America going onward just fine, nicer and more enlightened. With far more manpower and productivity, we’d still have grown into an industrial, economic, and geopolitical superpower.

Of course it’s a truism that history can hinge on small contingencies, and the Civil War was a big one. Without it, today’s whole world would be different. Yet it’s hard to see it being worse.

Historian MacKinlay Kantor wrote a 1961 book, If the South Had Won the Civil War. (My ex-partner was fascinated by the notion; after she left, I finally found a copy, and sent it to her.) Kantor imagined the victorious Confederacy eventually evolving toward convergence with the USA, and reuniting. That seems over-optimistic.

A separate South would have been an economic backwater left on its own to grapple with its slavery problem. Not a pretty picture. The last nation to abolish slavery was Brazil, in 1888. How long could the CSA have sustained it? How much bloodshed would have eventuated? What would race relations there have looked like afterwards? Jim Crow and the KKK give some idea, but unrestrained by the U.S. federal government and Constitution.

Meantime, back to voting, would a 39-state America today be afflicted by Trump? He’d have no chance of winning. In fact his very name would be no more than a reality-TV footnote. While in today’s actual world he threatens the America of “better angels” that Lincoln idealized.

Something Lincoln could hardly have foreseen. But perhaps, in the long view of history, his stopping Southern secession was a tragic mistake. With the Trumpian chickens coming home to roost only a century-and-a-half later.