Category Archives: personal views of Roger W. Smith

prevarication; institutionalized cruelty

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Two news stories caught my eye this morning.

 

“This way madness lies”

by Dana Milbank

Washington Post

January 16, 2018

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-way-madness-lies/2018/01/16/0b627fe2-fb0a-11e7-a46b-a3614530bd87_story.html?utm_term=.3b24634fb0e1

 

and

 

“Michigan Father Deported After Living in U.S. for 30 Years”

By Christina Caron

New York Times

January 16, 2018

Christina Caron Michigan father deported

 

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Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank is a good and perceptive writer. He states:

I knew that Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, when she appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, would deny that Trump said what the whole world knows he said: that he wants immigrants from Norway rather than from “shithole” countries in Africa.

Nielsen … was now under oath, and she wiggled every which way to excuse Trump without perjuring herself: “I did not hear that word used. … I don’t dispute that the president was using tough language.”

[Senator Patrick] Leahy moved on to Trump’s wish for more Norwegian immigrants. “Norway is a predominantly white country, isn’t it?” he asked, rhetorically.

“I actually do not know that, sir,” Nielsen replied. “But I imagine that is the case.”

Kirstjen Nielsen doesn’t know Norwegians are white?

Milbank goes on to say:

Now the federal government is hurtling toward a shutdown, entirely because of the president’s whim. Democrats and Republicans presented him last week with exactly the bipartisan deal he said he would sign — protecting the immigrant “dreamers” while also providing funding for his border security “wall” [italics added] — but Trump unexpectedly exploded with his racist attack and vulgar word.

That’s what brought to mind the second article, in The New York Times, and the whole topic of Trump’s wall.

 

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Here’s what I would like to know.

Why is a “bipartisan deal” under consideration to provide funding for Trump’s wall? Have Democrats lost their spines or minds?

We don’t need it! As I explained in a previous post:

 

“Walt Whitman, immigration policy, and Donald Trump’s wall; or, the Berlin Wall redux”

https://rogersgleanings.com/2017/01/25/roger-w-smith-walt-whitman-immigration-policy-and-donald-trumps-wall/

 

It’s not in any sense just a matter of the wall being unnecessary or too expensive, or an eyesore. Or whatever. It’s bad policy and it smacks of Iron Curtain style statism verging on totalitarianism.

The Times article concerns Jorge Garcia, an immigrant from Mexico who has been living in the United States for a period of slightly less than thirty years. The basic facts: he is married to an American citizen; he and his wife have two children; he has no known criminal record and was employed (until a day or two ago) as a landscaper; he has cooperated over the years with immigration authorities. You can read the rest of the sad story and about the bureaucratic quagmire he got caught in over technicalities.

On Monday, immigration agents put Garcia on a flight to Mexico, with his wife and 15-year-old daughter (both in tears) and his 12-year-old son standing by and looking on. “We’re devastated. We’re sad, we’re depressed,” his wife, Cindy Garcia, said.

 

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Here’s what I think, and I know I’m right.

Ours is a country of immigrants. We are all descended from immigrants. God knows how they got here and what they underwent (both emigrating and in making a life in The New Land).

To pursue and harry immigrants (regardless of their immigration status in the eyes of the law, which is at best imperfect) who are law abiding and hardworking and have done no harm – in fact, the opposite — is cruel and, in fact, unjust. It belies and betrays our foundational and civic principles. If the purpose is to prevent terrorists and malefactors from entering our country, what is the point behind expelling immigrants such as Mr. Garcia and “dreamers”?

You know what actions such as this particular one remind me of? When slaves, who were considered property, were sold away and separated from their families — spouse, parents, or children – by being sold to a different master.

We have so much to gain from immigrants, as I see every day in New York. If they were allowed to come, economic and other factors, such as possible overcrowding, allocation of social services, etc. would take care of themselves, naturally. Things reach their own level and will adjust themselves without government intervention. They always have.

 

— Roger W. Smith

   January 17, 2018

 

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addendum:

A quote from William Blake comes to mind: “He who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars. General Good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite, and flatterer. … .”

— William Blake, “Jerusalem”

 

Looking at this from another angle — or from several — what Blake is saying is, don’t try to ameliorate the human condition by instituting policies designed to achieve this or to rectify some perceived flaw, say, in the law or policy, but pay attention to the effect of actions taken upon individuals. How does an initiative towards improving the human condition (or preventing adverse consequences, so deemed) affect them?

Or, better yet, don’t even think about generalities; think about the effect upon actual living, breathing people. If you’re harming them, it’s a certainty that you are doing no general or larger good.

 

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addendum:

My friend from high school days Jan Brady posted the following on Facebook on January 18:

QUOTE: “All of those in violation of the immigration laws may be subject to immigration arrest, detention and, if found removable by final order, removal from the United States,” [Khaalid] Walls [a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] said in a statement.”

Where is the rationale?

I’ve lost sight of the “Why”. What greater good is gained by this action?

a better, stronger country?

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re

“As a 2-State Solution Loses Steam, a 1-State Plan Gains Traction”

By David M. Halbfinger

The New York Times

January 5, 2018

David M Halbfinger re 2-state solution

 

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The article states:

The Israeli right, emboldened by President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, is not the only faction arguing for a single state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

The Palestine Liberation Organization has also begun to ask whether that might not be such a bad idea, though it has a radically different view of what that state would look like.

As momentum ebbs for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, both sides are taking another look at the one-state idea. But that solution has long been problematic for both sides.

For the Israelis, absorbing three million West Bank Palestinians means either giving up on democracy or accepting the end of the Jewish state. The Palestinians, unwilling to live under apartheid-like conditions or military occupation, have also seen two states as their best hope. …

Palestinian supporters envision one state with equal rights for Palestinians and Jews. Palestinians would have proportionate political power and, given demographic trends, would before long be a majority, spelling the end of the Zionist project. …

Under that idea, the Palestinian movement would shift to a struggle for equal civil rights, including the freedoms of movement, assembly and speech, and the right to vote in national elections.

 

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As noted in a Wikipedia entry, “Israel defines itself as a Jewish and democratic [italics added] state. Israel is a representative democracy with a parliamentary system, proportional representation and universal suffrage.”

 

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I am not well informed about Arab-Israeli issues. But, perhaps one might say (although I would disagree) that the so called “Palestinian territories” and “occupied Palestinian territories” — i.e., the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip — since they are occupied or otherwise under the control of Israel, should perhaps be “talked about separately” in this context, meaning, yes, Israel is a democracy, etc., but political issues and solutions with respect to the occupied territories are not the same as those applying to the Jewish state. But, to explain what I mean by “this context,” it seems to me to be worth noting that Palestinians are struggling for (in the words of the Times article) “equal civil rights, including the freedoms of movement, assembly and speech, and the right to vote in national elections.”

Isn’t that what the Civil Rights movement in the US was about? Yes, blacks already had such rights under the US Constitution, but they were struggling to be allowed to exercise and be granted them de facto.

I have — politically naive as I am — been harboring a thought. As follows: That if Israel absorbed the population of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and became a true democracy, notwithstanding the fact that Arabs would predominate population-wise, something miraculous would happen. (I have a dream, one might say.) A better, stronger country would eventually emerge. I feel intuitively that diversity is always better. It is what has made the US such a great country, which, sadly, President Trump does not realize.

 

— Roger W. Smith

   January 7, 2018

good neighbors (in a metropolis)

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Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

— Matthew 22:31

 

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I have lived in New York City since early adulthood.

New Yorkers cold and impersonal? Too busy to be Good Samaritans?

I have often experienced instances of just the opposite.

 

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On Wednesday afternoon, January 3, a bitterly cold day, I was headed home and was waiting for a bus.

No one at the bus stop. I guessed that I probably had just missed a bus and that another one wouldn’t arrive for at least ten to fifteen minutes.

It’s a bleak neighborhood, but there was a “gourmet deli” right there.

I entered and ordered a large cappuccino. There was one customer in front of me. Two young women were behind the counter. I paid $3.95 for the cappuccino.

Through a window, I saw my bus, the Q39, pulling up at the bus stop.

“How long does it take to make a cappuccino?” I said to the woman who had taken my order. “My bus is here.”

I left without a cappuccino or the $3.95. The bus was at the curb, about to leave.

I got on. There were only a couple of other passengers. The driver shut the door.

Then he opened the door again for a “last minute passenger.” A young woman boarded (whom I realized after the fact was the cashier) with cash in hand, arms extended. She dashed to my seat and said, breathlessly, “here’s your $3.95”; handed me the money with a big smile. Then she darted off the bus before it left.

New Yorkers are NICE.

 

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When I first moved to New York (to take a job) after graduating from college, I was overwhelmed by the immensity and seeming impersonality of the place. The anonymity was refreshing and liberating, in its own way. But, the City seemed like an awfully cold place. (And, besides its sheer size, all those high rise buildings intimidated me.)

I went to Eighth Street in Greenwich Village once, when interviewing for the job, and asked a couple of young people if there were any like minded types hanging out there, as I had experienced on Boston Common. “If you walk over to St. Mark’s Place, you will find some,” they said kindly.

On Sundays, I would hang out in Central Park, where Sixties types would congregate, perhaps listening to a guitar player singing folk songs, hoping that I would vicariously feel a sense of belonging or companionship.

One day in a subway station, I asked someone a question of some sort. They answered politely and helpfully. I told a friend of mine from college, Sam Silberstein (son of concentration camp survivors), who had grown up in Flushing, Queens, about this. “Someone was actually nice to me in the subway,” I said.

“New Yorkers are people, too,” Sam replied.

 

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Yes, New Yorkers are nice. I wonder if it’s the same way in Paris. I don’t think so. Parisians seem to be cold and abrupt. But, I can’t really say, having been to Paris only briefly a few times.

“Even with that sprawl of humanity, New York can be lived as a small town, familiar and compact,” in the words of New York Times reporter Jim Dwyer.

What accounts for this? I am thinking particularly of the way New Yorkers treat one another.

I think there are several factors. People like myself live in a metropolis like New York because they like being amidst other people. They don’t want to live in an ivory tower or, God forbid, a gated community.

The diversity of New York’s population acts as an elixir, a tonic. Immigrants in particular bring vitality and a palpable sense of community to the City. One might think it could be otherwise, that perhaps immigrants would cloister themselves in ethnic enclaves. Perhaps to an extent in the outlying boroughs, but, for the most part, I have found that it’s the opposite: The newcomers, and the recently arrived, or those who have not always lived in New York (which includes a large segment of the population) are full of enthusiasm for everything (and an inherent ingenuousness), including getting to know other people. And the tourists have the same attitude.

 

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When I go into retail establishments, restaurants, and the like, the staff seems to be for the most part friendly, eager to relate with you, the customer. (Perhaps a bit less so in chain stores.) I seem to get a welcoming reception and a friendly hello or goodbye over half the time.

If you are in distress, incommoded, or someone perceives they can help you, it’s quite remarkable how often people are ready and eager to do so. When I tripped and fell flat on my face crossing Third Avenue a couple of months ago and within seconds several people were clustered around me, helping me to get up, asking if I was okay, and (one woman) offering to call for medical assistance.

When I was taking photographs on Fifth Avenue near 59th Street last summer and someone with a foreign accident, a man who seemed to be Hispanic with several children, noticed that I had dropped my wallet on the pavement and alerted me to the fact. (I was already walking away and was halfway down the block). Same thing if one drops something or gets up and leaves one’s hat or gloves or one’s MetroCard on their seat on a bus. People including myself swiping their MetroCard for someone who needs a fare, and frequently giving handouts.

And so on. I could cite numerous examples.

 

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Re niceness. Of people in general, that is. And Good Samaritan-ship (aka altruism). I prefer to encounter it “in the raw,” so to speak, spontaneously, from average people whom one encounters ad libitum. To witness it bubbling up from the ebullience of good hearted types. Prefer this to organized charity and welfare, to do goodership of the institutional form.

 

–– Roger W. Smith

   January 5, 2018

we are blessed (and so am I): racial diversity in New York

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This past fall, I saw the film Ex Libris, directed by the documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman. It is a documentary film about the New York Public Library, both the library system itself and the vital role it plays in the life of the City.

The film includes scenes of library patrons participating in discussion groups. In one scene, a discussion group at the library’s main branch on Fifth Avenue is engaged in a lively exchange of views about Gabriel García Márquez’s novel Love in the Time of Cholera with respect to romantic love. There were several scenes of library patrons participating in similar meetings and discussion groups at branch libraries in Manhattan and in other boroughs such as the Bronx. Some were about books, some involved a presentation cum discussion on topics of current interest. Others concerned how to make the library more accessible or serve community needs better.

Something that struck me was that the racial/ethnic composition or makeup of the various local groups seen in the film was so diverse. Well, one might say, would you not expect this in a city such as New York? Everyone knows it is racially heterogeneous and always has been.

Yes, but.

I observed the same thing at a business presentation not long ago: a presentation by persons associated with an entrepreneurial company for attendees who had recently become involved as independent partners and persons interested in getting involved. It was a relatively small group and there was a lot of interaction among the attendees.

What I have observed is that in New York, people do not seem to notice or take account of racial differences. They just plain don’t matter.

At both the library sessions seen in the film and at the business meeting I attended, the ethnicity was varied: whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and other groups. And, it was not as if there was just a smattering of or token representation by one racial or ethnic group or another. All were amply represented. There had obviously been no conscious effort to achieve “diversity” in the makeup of the audience/participants. It had just resulted, naturally, that the groups were notably diverse. In both instances, one did not get the sense of any one group predominating in any sense, numerically or otherwise.

The discussions were spirited. Persons were engaged. At no time — I observed this both in the film I saw and as a participant/observer at the business meeting — does one ever get the sense of consciousness by anyone — meaning speakers or audience; the give and take of participants who had something to say or just looked on with interest; group discussions — of race, their race or anyone else’s, being a factor that was taken or that one was expected to take into account, or that actually was noticed (which is to say, by an impartial observer), from what I could observe. Race was not a factor in any shape or form. It was clearly not something that might affect the content of the discussion and how someone or their contributions were viewed. People were just plain friendly and respectful, period. No one looked to be guarded or on the defensive. Everyone seemed fully accepted and welcomed. A priori. As a matter of course. No one is unwelcome nor patronized or talked down to.

In New York City, race really doesn’t seem to matter — as a public thing, that is: in social interactions and events, business, or commerce. In other words, in daily life, which goes on as it should. This is a welcome and edifying thing. It energizes and gladdens me.

 

— Roger W. Smith

  December 2017

A Slap in the Face? Or, Reverse Racism?

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See:

‘A Slap in the Face’: Pick of White Man to Lead Council Draws Fire”

by Jeffery C. Mays and J. David Goodman

The New York Times

December 22, 2017

‘A Slap in the Face’ – NY Times 12-22-2017

 

“For months, black political leaders watched the bare-knuckled, back-room race to lead the New York City Council with a mix of hope and trepidation. Five of the eight candidates were black or Hispanic — offering the prospect of a first black speaker — but two of the most prominent front-runners were white men.

“In the end, one of those white men, Councilman Corey Johnson of Manhattan, emerged victorious. Now black leaders are railing against a process that produced another white face atop the government of a majority-minority city that already has white men in the roles of mayor, comptroller, three of five district attorney’s offices and at the heads of various city agencies.”

… ‘This is a slap in the face,’ said Rev. Jacques Andre DeGraff, associate pastor of Canaan Baptist Church in Harlem. ‘People feel offended.’ ”

 

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“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

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my thoughts:

How far we have come since the idealism of those days. Or, should I say, how sad that the political dialogue when it comes to race has reached such depths.

Why should be being white be an impediment to being a viable candidate?

“[B]lack leaders are railing against a process that produced another white face atop the government of a majority-minority city. …,” the article states. What if I stated the opinion that there should be more whites in leadership positions for some reason or other? Think I wouldn’t be labeled a white supremacist?

And, what do “white” and “black” mean anyway? See my previous post

“this isn’t racism?”

this isn’t racism?

Has the possibility that they themselves might be engaging in reverse racism ever occurred to the black leaders quoted in this article. Has the mere THOUGHT ever crossed their minds, troubled them, or caused them to do some self-examination?

 

— Roger W. Smith

  December 23, 2017; reposted December 26

 

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addendum:

a comment by my friend Ella Rutledge (posted on Facebook):

“I differ with you on this, Roger. How can Dr. King’s dream come true if positive action is not taken, sacrifices made? Reverse racism? So what? At least white guys then get to know what racism feels like.”

a Christmas thought (and wish)

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“I should be glad to hear … people’s estimate of the comparative danger of a ‘little learning’ and a vast amount of ignorance; I should be glad to know which is considered the most prolific parent of misery and crime. I should be glad to assist them in their calculations by carrying them into certain gaols and nightly refuges I know of, where my own heart dies within me, when I see thousands of immortal creatures condemned … by years of this wicked axiom.”

— Charles Dickens, address to the Manchester Athenaeum, October 5, 1843

 

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The film ends with an idealistic vision of a day: “when … prison bars wrought in the fires of intolerance -” will no longer prevail. Prisoners in striped uniforms in a long corridor shake their fists up toward a prison wall. “Instead of prison walls — Bloom flowery fields.” Brilliant light descends from above toward the exterior of a prison. The prisoners who are gesturing toward the wall suddenly move through it – the prison walls disappear. The exterior of the prison dissolves into an open country scene with a flowering field in the foreground, and mountains in the background.

— plot synopsis of closing scene, Act II of Intolerance (1916), a silent film directed by D. W. Griffith.

 

— Roger W. Smith

  December 23, 2017

the absurdity of racial categorizations (a glaring example)

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“Race is a construct, not a real thing.” — Luanne Castle, “Memoir and the Construct of Race”

blog post, January 2018

Memoir and the Construct of Race

 

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In a previous blog post

“this isn’t racism?”

this isn’t racism?

I wrote:

… what is white, anyway, and what is black? When it comes to racial categories, that is.

Whites are not really white and blacks are not really black. Were my skin white, I would probably scare a lot of people. … There is such diversity in ethic groupings that it seems nonsensical to me to sort them into ironclad groupings. The groupings were made up by someone or other who manufactured them out of thin air, bureaucrats; they ignore many ethnic groups and sort them almost willy-nilly.

 

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Consider the following news item about Prince Harry’s new fiancée, Meghan Markle.

She was born Rachel Meghan Markle in Los Angeles in 1981 to a white father and black mother.

Her parents — lighting director Thomas Markle and clinical therapist Doria Ragland — divorced when she was 6, but she has said they remain a close-knit family. …

In an essay written for Elle magazine in 2015, Markle discussed coming to terms with her racial identity and how conflicted she felt in seventh grade when forced to check a box indicating her ethnicity.

“You could only choose one, but that would be to choose one parent over the other — and one half of myself over the other. My teacher told me to check the box for Caucasian. ‘Because that’s how you look, Meghan,’ she said,” Markle wrote.

“I couldn’t bring myself to do that, to picture the pit-in-her-belly sadness my mother would feel if she were to find out. So, I didn’t tick a box.”

When she came home, her dad said, “If that happens again, you draw your own box.”

“How Meghan Markle went from minor celebrity to English royalty,” by Danika Fears, The New York Post, November 28, 2017

 

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To me, this story is indicative of the absurdity and the harm done by the present system of racial categorization, and racial categories, existing in the United States.

 

— Roger W. Smith

  November 2017; updated January 2018

 

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Addendum: I have been thinking about this some more.

Ms. Markle’s seventh grade teacher told her that she looked Caucasian, so she should check the box for white.

All of the news accounts of her and Prince Harry’s engagement noted that she was of “mixed race.”

I know what this is supposed to mean, but aren’t almost all humans a  blend, genetically speaking, of races and ancestors? Someone might say, echoing Orwell, that some are more mixed than others. But how about all the mixing of races and ethnicities from different nations and continents? If Prince Harry were engaged, say, to a woman with an American father and an Asian mother, would the press have taken much note of it?

The government and many institutions such as colleges  and universities think race is important. They require it to be designated on census forms, applications, and such. How is one to keep track of it all? Should everyone be required to submit the results of an Ancestry.com DNA test?

 

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Addendum: See also

“It’s time the Census Bureau stops dividing America”

by Ward Connerly and Mike Gonzalez

The Washington Post

January 3, 2018

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/its-time-the-census-bureau-stops-dividing-america/2018/01/03/a914a176-f0af-11e7-97bf-bba379b809ab_story.html

 

‘It’s time the census bureau stops dividing America’ – Washington Post 1-3-2018

code words

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Sunday Review section

The New York Times

November 26, 2017

pg. 6

 

Friends Academy

Locust Valley, Long Island, NY

Quaker, Co-Educational, Independent Day School

For ages 3 through twelfth grade.

 

EDUCATORS OF COLOR

Open House

Please join us for this special event.

 

Friends Academy is hosting an Educators of Color Open House for educators of color interested in teaching at our school and learning more about independent schools.

Bring your resume!

 

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In the now distant past, our Polish nanny had completed several years of employment with my wife and me. She wanted to continue working in the US as a nanny. To help her, we offered to place and pay for an employment wanted advertisement in the New York Times classifieds section.

I wrote the ad, which said something like “Experienced European nanny seeking a position in Manhattan. References provided.”

The Times classified section contacted me by telephone and said that the ad was not acceptable as worded. Not only ethnicity but also country of origin could not be specified in such an ad, the rationale for this stipulation being that any hint of ethnicity or race was prohibited. (European might be an indirect way of saying “white.”) This was a newly implemented policy at the time. I understood this and found it reasonable. I removed the word “European” from the ad.

I don’t like the term “people of color.” It is too vague a term for me. It’s an invented word functioning as a sort of code word, meaning that there are more commonly used words available. I might ask, “What color?” And, with reference to this ad, does this mean that white people are not invited to this open house (since white is a color)? I am being facetious. It is clear that they are not.

A question. This sort of thing has often occurred to me. What if I were responsible for recruitment of teachers at a fancy prep school where I was an administrator? What if I wrote an advertisement saying something like, “An open house for White Anglo Saxon Protestant educators interested in teaching at our school will be held on _______.” Do you think that The New York Times would print it, and should such an advertisement be published,  do you think anyone might object?

 

— Roger W. Smith

   November 2017

Sic semper tyrannis

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Have you noticed? On cable news stations now, it’s all Trump, all the time.

Trump and his administration should be covered closely and his actions, statements, and claims scrutinized.

But, in my humble opinion, it’s way too much. It’s as if there were nothing else to talk about. It almost seems addictive or unhealthy, like compulsive snacking.

Isn’t there anything else important?

 

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I started thinking about the Mueller probe. It is entering a new phase, with the special counsel announcing three indictments at the end of last month — including the indictment of Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Investigators are interviewing people close to the president’s inner circle.

And running through my mind thoughts about how this might be viewed in comparison with past investigations and scandals.

For instance, Watergate. I devoured each morsel of news that was divulged, piece by piece, as members of the Nixon administration and Nixon himself got ensnared in the scandal. As Nixon’s lies were shown to be lies.

As Nixon’s press secretary, Ron Ziegler, dismissed the first report of the break-in at the Watergate Hotel as a “third rate burglary attempt” and then, as the investigation into Watergate deepened, admitted that his previous statements had become “inoperative.” (Shades of false claims made by White House press secretary Sean Spicer and what Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway said, in defending Spicer, about “alternative facts.”)

I hated Nixon, thought he was a crook. The consummate practitioner of political dirty tricks: he and his administration. I not only felt that Nixon deserved to be impeached, I couldn’t wait to see it happen. If it could be brought about. Because it was, until the very end, by no means certain. To bring down a president who had been reelected in 1972 by the widest margin in popular votes of any US presidential election.

But, I see now in hindsight that the reason Nixon was forced to resign (facing impeachment) was that enough people — especially the establishment — didn’t LIKE him. The establishment turned against him and, ultimately, the diehards in his own party did.

The Watergate affair began with the arrest of five men for breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in June 1972. The actual damage done by the break-in was negligible. But, the deepening scandal revealed a pattern of abuses of power by the Nixon administration and a subsequent cover up.

In the case of the Mueller probe, the proximate cause that has led to an inquiry was Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and the Trump campaign’s involvement in it. Again, the damage done does not seem serious enough to bring down an entire administration.

 

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So, what causes leaders to lose power?

Most will say, perhaps rightly: ABUSES of power.

But, I would say: With all the committee hearings and all the twists and turns. With the probes designed to trap and ensnare officials in their own lies, like someone all twisted up in a coat they’re trying to take off. That leaders lose power when they fall out of favor. When not enough people support them any longer. When they are considered, perhaps, as pariahs: an embarrassment or offensive to good taste. When the establishment doesn’t support them. It has been this way since ancient times.

If they lose support, it is only a matter of time before they’re gone. They and their administration will collapse like Humpty Dumpty or a house of cards. All sorts of investigative probes and hearings and rationales will be held and advanced to justify to the public’s satisfaction, and to provide a supposedly legal foundation for, the removal of the officeholder. But what really counts is whether the leader is still liked. By the RIGHT PEOPLE.

 

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What is really going on with the Mueller probe is the following: A lot of people, including practically the entire liberal elite, want to see Trump gone. By any means. For and using any reason. The probe and the committee hearings are a sort of play acting, a choreographed dress rehearsal for what they hope will be the president’s downfall.

The Watergate hearings: Senator Sam Ervin, Samuel Dash. Great political theater.

President Nixon: an anathema to the liberal establishment.

Donald Trump: a bull in a China shop, darling of the “deplorables.”

 

— Roger W. Smith

   November 2017

crime or indiscretion?

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‘Shkreli Is Jailed for Seeking a Strand of Clinton’s Hair’

 

re:

Martin Shkreli Is Jailed for Seeking a Hair From Hillary Clinton

The New York Times

September 14, 2017

I emailed my wife as follows.

 

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This Martin Shkreli guy sounds a bit weird and he may be guilty, as he has already been found to be (but I wonder). There is no reason, however, for revoking his bail and imprisoning him now.

In a maximum security prison.

No prior criminal record. He’s a “danger to society”?

These judges are sententious fussbudgets devoid of common sense as regards — or any insight whatsoever into — actual people, with all their foibles.

There are usually explanations for odd, off-putting human behavior that doesn’t actually result in harm to anyone. Judges refuse, 99.9 percent of the time, to hear them. They — as an individual I met at a funeral once said about one of his relatives whose husband had died — lack a “humanity gene.”

Petty indiscretions which offend their sense of propriety are pretty much the same as egregious crimes in their book. If there was such a book, it wouldn’t be good or enlightening reading. Maimonides it wouldn’t be. Think Boy Scout or Girl Scout Handbook.

— Roger W. Smith

 September 2017