Resistance: Maybe not futile

From "The Resistance Strikes Back" by Michelle Goldberg in the New York Times:

"On Thursday we learned that ... Lucy McBath, an African-American gun control advocate, had flipped the [Georgia congressional] seat.

"McBath’s victory was emblematic of the Resistance triumphs in the midterms. There was no immediate catharsis on Tuesday, no definitive national rebuke of a president whose bottomless depravity continues to dumbfound more than half the country. But the steady work of citizens who’ve been trying, over the last two years, to fight the civic nightmare of Trumpism bore fruit. It was a slog, pockmarked with disappointments. At the end, though, there was hope."

Last week's election has many examples of Democrats winning because they inspired resistance to the terrible demagogs and rising fascism in our country.

Ice Cream and Social Justice?

BUT: here's another view of this new ice cream flavor. One of their choices has become toxic because of the antisemitism which is fundamental to the founders of the Women's March. At first these antisemites were given a pass -- but nevertheless they persisted in their bigoted views --

Ben & Jerry’s has publicly announced a new ice cream flavor “celebrating activists who are continuing to resist oppression, harmful environmental practices and injustice.” Financial grants were also provided to four organizations that Ben & Jerry’s felt represented social activism. I was horrified to learn that one of the organizations receiving the grant was the 2017 Women’s March, which was partially founded by Linda Sarsour and Tamika Mallory — both vocal and virulent antisemites.

From the Ben & Jerry's website here. They write:

Together, Pecan Resist!

Alongside all those nutty chunks, this pint packs a powerful message under its lid: together, we can build a more just and equitable tomorrow. We can peacefully resist the Trump administration’s regressive and discriminatory policies and build a future that values inclusivity, equality, and justice for people of color, women, the LGBTQ community, refugees, and immigrants. Pecan Resist supports four organizations that are working on the front lines of the peaceful resistance, building a world that supports their values. Get to know them, then find Pecan Resist here!

Get To Know The Partners

Color of Change

Color of Change designs campaigns powerful enough to end practices that unfairly hold Black people back, and champions solutions that move everyone forward.

Honor the Earth

Honor the Earth works on issues of climate change, renewable energy, and environmental justice with Indigenous communities.

Neta

Neta is one of the fastest-growing independent media platforms led by people of color along the Texas-Mexico border.

Women’s March

Women’s March is committed to harnessing the political power of diverse women and their communities to create transformative social change.

I Have No Words for Saturday's Massacre

From the New York Times

Freedom

Freedom is a word that everyone knows. But advocates of freedom, while often striving for equivalent human goals, have expressed their commitment in many ways. In the last few days, I've read about two famous freedom fighters: Mahatma Gandhi and Harriet Tubman. I feel that by familiarizing myself with these two famous people from such very different backgrounds, I might better understand the richness of the idea of freedom. In this context, I've also been thinking of the famous "Four Freedoms" defined by President Roosevelt in 1941.

This post is a duplicate of my post for today at maefood.blogspot.com.

Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman was the best-known "conductor" on the Underground Railroad in the decade before the Civil War. She rescued several hundred slaves and escorted them to freedom in sympathetic northern states and Canada. During war, she continued by working with the Union Army to rescue hundreds more slaves that were being held by Confederate troops. Born into slavery, she escaped but returned to the South many times to rescue others.

To learn about her, I read the book Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom by Catherine Clinton (published 2004). Because Tubman's work by definition was highly secretive, and because little documentation of the birth and parentage of slaves was recorded, the book presents the scant details known about her life in the context of the fight against slavery in the 19th century. Some quotes from the book:

The states north of the Mason-Dixon Line that had passed emancipation statutes were revered as a kind of Canaan— a place where blacks could work and worship, marry and raise children, freely pursuing life and liberties. Once they crossed over, fugitives would be unfettered by bondage. Most southern bondspeople had little or no contact with this free northern black world, but idealized what might await them once they fled. (Kindle Locations 713-716).

Tubman’s growing realization that all people of color— slave, fugitive, or free, in both North and South— were imperiled by the very existence of racial bondage made 1850 a critical turning point in her life, as her own personal journey to freedom expanded to include the aspirations of all slaves. (Kindle Locations 1079-1081).

When she spoke out against slavery, she was not attacking it in the abstract but had personally known its evils. She risked the horror of reenslavement with every trip, repeatedly defying the slave power with her rescues and abductions. These risks elevated the significance of her contributions to the UGRR [Underground Railroad] movement. (Kindle Locations 1313-1315).

Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi, from the New Yorker article.

Gandhi, of course, was the leader of the struggle to free India from British colonial rule. His method, non-violence, has been adopted by many subsequent freedom fighters. A current New Yorker article titled "Gandhi for the Post-Truth Age" by Pankaj Mishra explored the ways that Gandhi is relevant to our time. Two quotes:

People in the West, Gandhi argued, merely “imagine they have a voice in their own government”; instead, they were “being exploited by the ruling class or caste under the sacred name of democracy.” Moreover, a regime in which “the weakest go to the wall” and a “few capitalist owners” thrive “cannot be sustained except by violence, veiled if not open.” This is why, Gandhi predicted, even “the states that are today nominally democratic” are likely to “become frankly totalitarian.”

And this:

Satyagraha, literally translated as “holding fast to truth,” obliged protesters to “always keep an open mind and be ever ready to find that what we believed to be truth was, after all, untruth.” Gandhi recognized early on that societies with diverse populations inhabit a post-truth age. “We will never all think alike and we shall always see truth in fragments and from different angles of vision,” he wrote. And even Gandhi’s harshest detractors do not deny that he steadfastly defended, and eventually sacrificed his life for, many values under assault today—fellow-feeling for the weak, and solidarity and sympathy between people of different nations, religions, and races. 

Franklin D. Roosevelt 

In 1941, Roosevelt gave a speech in which he defined four freedoms relevant to the United States and the world, then threatened by German aggression.

Norman Rockwell's famous depiction of the Four Freedoms motivated the War Bond campaign in World War II. (Wikipedia)

Today, in 2018, these freedoms again are seriously threatened for at least some people who live in America, so I would like to leave you with the thought that one possible thing we can do to protect them is to vote next month!

On the Anniversary of Charlottesville

"From the moment they arrived in DC, the alt-right attendees were greatly outnumbered by thousands of counterprotesters, who took to the streets in both Charlottesville and Washington, DC, this weekend to push back against emboldened white supremacy."-- from Vox, August 12, 2018.

Don't follow this star...

"Police on Wednesday booked Austin Mikel Clay on suspicion of felony vandalism in connection with [Donald Trump's Hollywood Walk of Fame's] star’s destruction. Clay, who was being held in lieu of $20,000 bail, allegedly strode up to the star and bashed through Trump’s brass nameplate around 3:30 a.m., according to police." (source)

"Passers-by view Donald Trump's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
after it was vandalized Wednesday morning. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)." 

Heroic Protest

From "Trump blasts Prime Minister Theresa May", Washington Post, July 12, 2018.

Shaming

Recently, fed-up civilians have been reacting to shameful behavior of officials of our not-very-legitimate government by some in-your-face shaming behavior. "Responsible" politicians have had varied reactions to these actions, which have ranged from outright confrontation to relatively civil requests that targeted officials or former officials leave a public space where they aren't wanted.

"Hi, I just wanted to urge you to resign because of what you’re doing to the environment
and our country," -- Scott Pruitt being told off by Kristin Mink (source).

Recipients of this public indignation or maybe rage, as is well documented, have included Scott Pruitt (just before he did sort-of resign from his Cabinet post), Sarah Huckabee Sanders (public liar for the President), Steve Bannon (now out of power but still going strong), Steve Miller (one of the biggest a-holes working in the White House),  Mitch McConnell (confronted in his home state), Kirstjen Nielsen (who should resign from the cabinet, but...) and one of the ugliest, Kellyanne Conway.

Prominent Democrats such as Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Shumer, and David Axelrod have called for "civility" from protesters. Quite a few responses to them point out that saying the protests aren't "civil" is a bit ironic, since separating small children from their parents, eliminating women's health care, and destroying many American businesses by ill-thought-out tariff polices are not themselves "civil."

An article in the Washington Post, "From Kellyanne Conway to Stephen Miller, Trump’s advisers face taunts from hecklers around D.C." included a number of examples stating:

"For any new presidential team, the challenges of adapting to Washington include navigating a capital with its own unceasing rhythms and high-pitched atmospherics, not to mention a maze of madness-inducing traffic circles. 

"Yet for employees of Donald Trump — the most combative president of the modern era, a man who exists in his own tweet-driven ecosystem — the challenges are magnified exponentially, particularly in a predominantly Democratic city where he won only 4 percent of the vote."

An article in the Guardian summarized the situation: "'Make them pariahs': how shaming Trump aides became a resistance tactic." Quotes from the article illustrating the two points of view about this behavior:

• Maxine Waters, member of the House of Representatives from California, says: "Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up. ... And if you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere."
• Chuck Schumer responded to Maxine Waters thus: "If you disagree with a politician, organize your fellow citizens to action, and vote them out of office, but no one should call for the harassment of political opponents. That’s not right – that’s not American."
• Markos Moulitsas, the founder of Daily Kos, says: "Public shaming of Trump regime officials isn’t just useful, it’s a moral imperative in these difficult times. ... We have a Republican party that has surrendered to the Russians, encourages white supremacists and Nazis, separates families, and locks up children in cages, and we’re supposed to treat these people as respected members of society? We have no choice but to turn them all into pariahs, now and forever into the future. ... None of them should ever be allowed to have a peaceful meal in public, unless they want to spend all their time in rural flyover country they pretend to love so much. They are destroying lives every single day, literally killing people in many cases, so they don’t get to be treated like royalty. They need to be confronted with the reality of their choices."
• Emma Gray, author of A Girl’s Guide to Joining the Resistance, says: "We’re way past hand-wringing over ‘civility in a democracy’ when basic human rights are at stake. There’s nothing ‘civil’ about stripping away women’s access to reproductive healthcare or ripping children away from their parents at the border with no plan to reunite them."
• The ACLU on its website says: "Once one chooses to operate a business open to the public, one takes on at least a moral – and often a legal – obligation to adhere to the norms that underlie the very definition of ‘public’. When a business turns away a customer, whether it’s the Red Hen refusing service to Sanders, or Masterpiece Cakeshop refusing service to Charlie Craig and David Mullins, it says, ‘You aren’t a legitimate member of the public.’"
• And from the Washington Post story: "'I would say it’s burning people out,' said Anthony Scaramucci, Trump’s former communications director. 'I just think there’s so much meanness, it’s causing some level of, "What do I need this for?" And I think it’s a recruiting speed bump for the administration. To be part of it, you’ve got to deal with the incoming of some of this viciousness.'"

"A Rich Brew"

A Rich Brew: How Cafés Created Modern Jewish Culture by Shachar M. Pinsker describes café life in Odessa, Warsaw, Berlin, Vienna, New York, and Tel Aviv, from the 19th century to the era before World War II. The book is a magnificent treatment of the subject that has concerned me throughout writing this blog: that is, the subject of secular Jews and their culture. For a long time, I've been trying to understand how modern Jewish culture -- the secular variety -- was created. There are other answers, but this one is a good one.

Pinsker shows how an essential location where 19th and 20th century Jewish (and sometimes non-Jewish) writers and intellectuals gathered in these cities was their cafés. He describes how these cafés were often a "Jewish space" because of both the owners and the customers. He names many, many Yiddish, Hebrew, German, Russian, and other-language writers that I've heard of and in many cases that I've read, and describes the cafés they frequented. It's a very good read!

I wrote a sort of an appreciation of the book at my other blog, in this post "How Cafés Created Modern Jewish Culture."

A small success

Headline in Washington Post: "Publix halts donations to self-described ‘NRA sellout’ amid boycott, ‘die-in’ protests by David Hogg." From the Post with caption:

David Hogg and other demonstrators lie on the floor at a Publix Supermarket in Coral Springs, Fla., Friday, May 25, 2018. Students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School were among those who participated in the “die-in” protest. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun-Sentinel/Associated Press via Washington Post)

Marjory Stoneman Douglas

Marjory Stoneman Douglas encouraged activists to "be a nuisance" and to "never give up" even if discouraged by bad politics. I hope she is an inspiration to the heroic students at the school named after her!

-- From Wikipedia

Who was she? A journalist and activist in saving the Everglades. Author of the book River of Grass. This name for the Everglades is now widely used: she invented it. From the "Visit Florida" website: 

In 1969, the 79-year-old writer-turned-environmentalist founded Friends of the Everglades. ... she guided her organization to press for the establishment of the Big Cypress National Preserve (1974), an end to agricultural pollution fouling Everglades water, reform in the expansionist impulses of water managers and restoration of the channelized, diked and otherwise arrested Kissimmee River-Lake Okeechobee-Everglades heart of the region. She spent her remaining decades moving the country toward a sensibility that assimilated the natural Everglades. 

Much like her famous phrase, her name became synonymous with a valued place. In 1997, Congress attached it to a new 1.8-million-acre Everglades wilderness area, four years after President Clinton awarded her the Medal of Freedom. When she died in 1998, at 108, park rangers appropriately broadcast her ashes in the beloved river she gave to America, the River of Grass.  

How sad that we have to associate her name with such a horror, but what an honor to the young activists from her namesake school.

The Saddest Heros

I'm too overcome to write much in my own words about appalling gun violence against children and the depraved attitude of politicians -- especially Republicans -- towards this escalating violence. Surviving children from last weeks debacle are emerging as heroic leaders, not only for suffering such a horrific experience, but for attempting to lead the rest of us to better political action.  I took these images from a story in the Washington Post, which documented how these new leaders have to stand up to the apathetic public, the horrific attitude of politicians, and also to grotesque attacks from right wing monsters.

Here are some words from "‘I am not a crisis actor’: Florida teens fire back at right-wing conspiracy theorists" by Travis M. Andrews and Samantha Schmidt (February 21, 2018) --

"Welcome, Parkland shooting survivors, to the ugly world of politics in 2018 

"In the aftermath of last week’s school shooting in Parkland, Fla., some of the most powerful testimonies have come from the teenagers who survived the rampage. They have repeatedly detailed their harrowing experience to national news networks, many calling for stricter gun control laws while decrying President Trump for not doing enough to protect students. Others have wept with grief while telling their stories again and again.  

"The students have become a mobilizing force unlike any seen after previous mass shootings, planning marches and rallies in Florida and Washington — all while mourning the friends they’ve so recently lost. 

"They have also become a target of right-wing smears and innuendo. 

"Some prominent figures in the right-wing media are suggesting that the students are making it all up, or that the children are paid actors or that their talking points have been manufactured by public relations experts on the left."

The article continues with details about the unspeakable attacks on the student heroes.

Patrick Henry: "If this be treason..."

Patrick Henry (1736-1799) is a well-known hero of the American revolution. He is famous for several speeches and actions. Here is one I've been thinking about: his very first speech to the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1765, when he was 29 years old. Henry outlined several rights that he believed should belong to the colonies. The most radical and new of these was this: "Only colonial assemblies had the right to impose taxes on their constituents and that right could not be assigned to any other body." In defense of his belief, he criticized both Parliament and King George III. Even more radical! Of the king he said:

"Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell and George the Third — ." At that point he was interrupted by cries of "Treason!" from delegates who easily recognized the reference to assassinated leaders. Henry paused briefly, then calmly finished his sentence: "...may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it." (source)

Patrick Henry (from Wikipedia)

A Hero for Our Time: Or Many Heroes

My first hero of 2018 is Emmanuel Mensah, who died attempting to rescue people from a burning apartment building last month. He's come to our attention now, being widely cited on social media and in the news, because he's one of many notably heroic immigrants from countries derided by the Chief Executive in a recent burst of profanity. He's one of many from these countries who have made valuable contributions to the nation and to humanity.

This duality: the quality of immigrants from the insulted countries and the President's vulgar dismissal of them, was cited (among many other articles in many sources) by the Editorial Board of the Washington Post in an article titled: "‘Shithole’ wasn’t the most offensive part of Trump’s Haiti comments" published January 12, 2018. Extract from the article:

"What is most offensive in the president’s comment on immigration to a group of senators on Thursday is not the vulgarity. 'Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?' Trump said, referring to Haiti and countries in Africa and Central America. 'Why do we need more Haitians? Take them out.' What is most offensive is not even the insult to other nations, though that is certainly unacceptable from a president of the United States.

"No, what should sadden every American is to have someone living in the White House with so little respect for the courage of women and men who have been coming here from 'shithole' countries for centuries — and who have built the United States into the great nation it is today. ...

"Shortly after The Post reported Mr. Trump’s comment, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol reminded us on Twitter of Emmanuel Mensah, who immigrated from Ghana five years ago and joined the Army National Guard. He was home in the Bronx last month when a devastating fire broke out in his apartment building; he lost his life as he rescued others. 'He brought four people out,' his uncle, Twum Bredu, who lives next door, told the New York Times. 'When he went to bring a fifth person out, the fire caught up with him.'

"Most Americans understand how fortunate we are to attract such heroes to our shores."

And in an article in the New York Times,  a bit more about this hero:

"A few days ago, the Army posthumously awarded Mensah the Soldier’s Medal, its highest award for heroism outside of combat, and New York State awarded him its Medal for Valor. The citation on the state medal reads: 'His courageous and selfless act in the face of unimaginable conditions are consistent with the highest traditions of uniformed service.'"