The Necessity of Violence

There has to be violence. Violence against the nearest object/store/car/building is the only viable outlet for the deepest anger, gut-wrenching frustration, but mostly, for the never-ending, systematic humiliation perpetrated by white people on Black people. Humiliation just for being alive. So, yes, violence is an answer to deal with the humiliation and torment of being a human living every day as a target of hate while simply walking down the street or sleeping in one's own bed. Can you imagine the magma of generations of humiliation roiling within a person's psyche ready to explode at the final straw? 

I can imagine it because as we know from numerous studies, past trauma can be passed down epigenetically and trauma seems to be most strongly passed from fathers to their sons, but not exclusively. It's called "transgenerational trauma or intergenerational trauma and is a psychological term which asserts that trauma can be transferred between generations. After a first generation of survivors experiences trauma, they are able to transfer their trauma to their children and further generations of offspring via complex post-traumatic stress disorder mechanisms." This is real. Real for everyone.  

I am not saying this is an excuse for violence but I sort of am. I can't think of any other immediate solution that would fulfill one's pent up justifiable rage with such a satisfying release. What...writing a letter? Making an appointment to talk to the police chief? Running for office? Where is that going to get you? You may as well say "Talk to the hand." 

The police understand violence. They understand its power and they use it liberally. Police want to make a point? Threaten violence. When it comes to violence for it to be legitimate, it’s okay if the police initiate it, not you. In other words, violence, treachery, humiliation, torture, torment...these are all their playing cards and they love a good card game. You know the MLK quote: "Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness." The speech doesn't end there: "We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love... Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man, but to win his friendship and understanding." 

With all due respect, the second part of the speech seems a little passé don't you think? Love has not worked, doesn't work. What does it even mean in this context? Love is hard even with someone you 'love' but to love someone who thinks nothing of doing you harm, who thinks you are dirt...come ON. How realistic is it 'to win the white man's friendship and understanding'? Ask any Indian. What makes you think the 'white men' who perpetrate this violence on Black people will suddenly change their minds about how they think of people of color if they are met with 'love'? They may smile and speak in platitudes and even shake your hand (this is Before Times) but never, ever turn your back on these people. Maybe, maybe after years of working together on 'love' and issues and policies, enough trust will be built up but man, that is going to take a long, long time. Trust is the real name of the game and to gain it, working together must produce tangible results…like vetting police officers before they enter the Police Academy; results like Black people having real influence and a real seat at the table where there is accountability, not just lip service.

The world is on fire yet there are people who say "This too shall pass" as it has in the past. We, all of us who care, who are sick of the social injustice for people of color, for immigrants, for the dispossessed, for the poor...we cannot 'let this pass'. We must seize on the momentum even during this pandemic to push forward and institute changes immediately. The first change must be in retraining police and how policing is done but that is just the technical side. Can you train people to have empathy? Every cop should have to take an in-depth history course and dive deep into how this country came to be where it is now. A course in enlightenment.

So, what comes after the violence once the violence is spent? Is there finally some psychic relief? Does a human go dormant like a volcano? Perhaps for a little while. Hopefully, people in power, with power, will use this dormant period to lay down their arms, open their hearts and minds (if they know what's good for them) and welcome the traumatized, the aggrieved, the humiliated, the violated to talk, to talk a lot, to talk often, to talk forever, to never stop talking about some real solutions to address the incalculable hurt and pain inflicted on Black people and people of color for years and years and years...for centuries. It's time.

Rethinking Mayor Pete Buttigieg 24 hours after my fawning post

Damn, I just learned how to say his name and yesterday wrote a fawning post about him, Pete Buttigieg, comparing him to his fellow shiny object, Beto O'Rourke. I even compared his emergence and ascent to Barack Obama's candidacy, smugly remembering how I predicted, from Day One that Obama would be President. And I thought here could be Obama 2.0. Then I remembered how I lost faith in Obama, after two years of happily volunteering, the day he was inaugurated and wrote extensively about him in this blog about what a disappointment he was and why. I, and millions of idolizers, failed to see beyond his message of Hope, to see that he was not a progressive, that his lack of experience did make a difference. Ok, I adore Obama, the person, just not the politician.

And along comes Pete! The embodiment of everything trump is not. We are so desperate for someone who can read, articulate an idea in full sentences, has a calming presence, is steady. Pete's all that...and I fell for it. Again. Here's why I've gone sour. I read an in-depth analysis, in fact you could call it a hit piece, on Current Affairs, All About Pete. It could be considered a little over-the-top as I'm sure Pete does have some depth but this is the part that got my attention...after you read it, I'll tell you why:

"But there was soon something even more disquieting. Talking about politics on campus, Buttigieg says:  

In April 2001, a student group called the Progressive Student Labor Movement took over the offices of the university’s president, demanding a living wage for Harvard janitors and food workers. That spring, a daily diversion on the way to class was to see which national figure—Cornel West or Ted Kennedy one day, John Kerry or Robert Reich another—had turned up in the Yard to encourage the protesters. 

Striding past the protesters and the politicians addressing them, on my way to a “Pizza and Politics” session with a journalist like Matt Bai or a governor like Howard Dean, I did not guess that the students poised to have the greatest near-term impact were not the social justice warriors at the protests […] but a few mostly apolitical geeks who were quietly at work in Kirkland House [Zuckerberg et al.]

I find this short passage very weird. See the way Buttigieg thinks here. He dismisses student labor activists with the right-wing pejorative “social justice warriors.” But more importantly, to this day it hasn’t even entered his mind that he could have joined the PSLM in the fight for a living wage. Activists are an alien species, one he “strides past” to go to “Pizza & Politics” sessions with governors and New York Times journalists. He didn’t consider, and still hasn’t considered, the moral quandary that should come with being a student at an elite school that doesn’t pay its janitors a living wage."

You see, my son, Benjamin McKean was one of the leaders of the PSLM, Progressive Student Labor Movement, that was sitting-in the President's office to demand a living wage for Harvard workers. It was an extraordinary protest that went on for three weeks and would have been incredibly hard to walk by that, if true, Pete did. It kind of made me sick and mad and made me see him in an entirely different light. Here's how the protest went down:

From A Brief History of the Living Wage Debate at Harvard
April - May 2001

Nearly fifty students occupy Massachusetts Hall, which houses the office of the President and other university administrators, in protest of Harvard's poverty wages and the administration's refusal to consider the living wage issue any further. During the three-week sit-in, the campaign organizes daily pickets and rallies drawing up to 2000 people, collects 400 faculty signatures in support of a living wage, gains the endorsement of four U.S. Senators, and draws sustained attention from the national media. Every night nearly a hundred people sleep in dozens of tents pitched in Harvard Yard outside of Mass Hall. Hundreds of campus workers mobilize to demand justice from Harvard and support the sitters-in. Over a hundred Harvard alumni/ae stage a mock sit-in at the Harvard Club of New York in solidarity with the protestors in Cambridge. 

May 2001

After three weeks, 25 students leave Mass Hall with an agreement from the university to create a committee (known as the Katz Committee) with faculty, administrators, students, and workers, charged with studying Harvard's labor policies and recommending changes by December 2001; to announce a moratorium on outsourcing until the committee's deliberations are complete; and to renegotiate a contract with the janitors' union in early 2002.

Undergraduates who participated in the sit-in are put on disciplinary probation. Students at the law school are given official reprimands.

Dining hall workers settle a contract with Harvard, raising the pay of all but a dozen workers to above the Cambridge living wage level.

If he's the candidate, I'll vote for him. But now I eye him with skepticism. GO BERNIE!

We're going to be talking about him anyway during this primary, so here's a helpful pronunciation guide: Buddha-judge, Boot-a-judge, Boo-tuh-judge, boot-edge-edge
You're welcome.























Here's a guide if you're still interested; Buddha-judge, Boot-a-judge, Boo-tuh-judge, boot-edge-edge

Head to head. Who will it be? Mayor Pete Buttigieg or Beto O'Rourke. Joe who?

POW! My guess is Beto doesn't know what hit him. Where did this dark horse come from that came galloping and jumping to the top of the candidate heap? OUT OF THE HEARTLAND People! A precious trophy for Presidential candidates and he came with more than the sparkle of a shiny object. Mayor Pete Buttigieg came with gravitas.

Beto O'Rourke was interviewed for an hour on David Axelrod's The Axe Files and I'm not sure if he said anything substantive, just the regular soup to nuts progressive talking points. He did talk about his bad boy background which I didn't know about but it did nothing to elevate him (who doesn't love a bad boy?) to someone I want to donate my hard-earned shekels to. Give him props for shaking up the Texas Senate race with an awesome ground campaign, making personal contact with thousands of voters, waking them from their somnambulism to get out and vote for chrissake and he almost made it but, as in all races, there's only one #1. His near win and the adulation of the campaign flipped his ego into overdrive and he thought he was Presidential material. Millions of people gave a whopping $80M to that race but, to me, it was more of an endorsement of the progressive message delivered by an attractive candidate. 

Then, a super smart, honest-to-god everyman comes along and talks like a regular person...albeit a brilliant one...looks you in the eye and also talks progressive values. Straight as they come, but gay, Pete Buttigieg has a solid resumé of accomplishments as mayor of South Bend. In his announcement, the message is that it's time for his generation to take over, it's time for a bright new day, "Today is the first day of a new era." Hear, Hear! The significance of the pictures of Pete and his husband, Chasten, embracing on stage, walking hand-in-hand down the steps of the stage cannot be overstated. It made me and millions of people so happy. And delighted to think of how Conservatives are throwing up right now.

As many of you know, my first love is Bernie and had Mayor Pete not shown up, he would have gotten my full attention. But I can love two people at the same time, right? Does that make us a threesome? Interestingly, in high school, Pete won the first prize for the JFK Profiles in Courage Essay Contest awarded by the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston. Guess what he wrote about? Pete wrote about the integrity and political courage demonstrated by U.S. Congressman Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Imagine that. And here they are both running for President. Would love to hear their thoughts about this.

Neither Beto nor Mayor Pete have run for national office, a killer experience if there ever was one. There will be many tests, mishaps, mis-spokes, stumbles along the way...not just for them but for every one of the candidates, as there always is. Beto, who is full of boiling energy, makes me a little nervous, like I just want to hold him down for a second, to chillax. Pete couldn't be more opposite, calm, serious, thoughtful but not boring. There's enough crap roiling our nervous systems everyday that I welcome his assuring presence. There's that gravitas again. 

Pete Buttigieg is the real thing. You know, I just reminded myself that I said the same thing about Barack Obama when he surprisingly showed up as a contender. And, we got the first black President. Now we have the first Monster President (I did not predict that.) Mayor Pete will be the first gay President. Bernie will be the first Jewish President. Why can't they be co-Presidents...you know, switch every year while the other one recharges?

Here's an apt reminder for those candidates whose deluded ambitions will eventually come smack up against the reality of the winnowing process - this tagline (thanks to Next Top Model): "One Day You're In & the Next Day You're Out'" Better have a Plan B.

It is the Worst of Times. And getting Worser. Without a doubt, clear and present danger.

No matter how hard I search, I can't seem to find a silver lining to this nightmare that is trump and the trumperverse he has created and emboldened. The psychological toll this has taken on the citizenry, on both sides, is incalculable. Everyone, and I mean everyone, has PTSD which should be considered a pre-existing condition from here on in, in our current healthcare world anyway. But who knows. Nothing is certain, the whole country is destabilized and stressed to the breaking point.

No democracy should ever want a military coup; but, in this case, I see a variant of one, a cautious option when the day may soon come from January 3rd, that 'his' Generals march into the Oval with a straitjacket to save the Nation. Oh, don't forget one for Pence. Then we will finally have a female President, Nancy Pelosi, with enough balls and experience to take the reins of government and do the best she can to right this sinking ship. The Generals will march back to the Pentagon after they have done their duty to save us from The Fall of American Empire.

January 3, 2019 can't come soon enough.

The Art of Being a Dictator by Donald J. Trump

The Feast of the Goat, Mario Vargas Llosa's riveting novel about dictator, Rafael Trujillo - 'the goat' - who led the Dominican Republic for thirty years, 1930 - 1961 is practically a power point presentation of how to be a dictator. I doubt Trump read it because he doesn't read, but his personality and character are all about narcissistic dictator impulses. I mean, if we're talking about being a dictator, I guess those impulses are universal.

Here are a few highlights how Trump and Trujillo mirror each other:

How To Be A Dictator #1
You think Baby Trump invented calling people insulting names? It's hard to gauge how people process the name calling, being called "criminal, lying', shady, sneaky, crazy, etc." but it's obviously intended to denigrate those that challenge him, his intellect or otherwise. There's even a Wikipedia page: List of nicknames used by Donald Trump

"Had he given him that nickname too, before he rebaptized him, in his heart of hearts, as the Walking Turd? Probably. Since his youth (Trujillo) had been good at making up nicknames. Many of the savage labels he stamped on people became part of their very flesh and eventually replaced their real names. That's what happened to Senator Henry Chirinos...they used only his devastating epithet: the Constitutional Sot."*

How To Be A Dictator #2
Could have been talking about the Baby Trump Whitehouse with Trump sadistically pitting one against the other.

"It amused Trujillo - an exquisite, secret game that he could permit himself - to observe the subtle maneuvers, the secretive stabbings, the Florentine intrigues devised one against the other by the Walking Turd and Egghead...and almost everyone else in his close circle, move ahead, be closer to and deserve greater attention, a closer hearing, more jokes, from the Chief....And in order to keep them always on the alert, to keep them from becoming moth-eaten and to avoid routine and ennui, he alternated them on the list, sending one, then the other, into disgrace."*

How To Be A Dictator #3
Trujillo insisted on fastidiousness. If a tie was slightly crooked or pants didn't have a knife-sharp crease, that would  be enough to send Trujillo round the bend. One of the reasons Baby Trump ostensibly dismissed Joseph diGenova and his wife Victoria Toensing was because they were too disheveled. I would say Trump has a way to go on this one, the way he dresses. Trujillo was meticulous about his dress.

How To Be A Dictator #4
Baby Trump has portraits of himself all over the place plus fake Time magazine covers he had hung in his golf clubs and god knows what else is around. He may be sorry he signed the bill making permanent a ban on the use of government funds to pay for oil portraits of the president, vice president, Cabinet members and lawmakers but I'm sure he will give his portrait an exemption.

"She barely noticed the portraits and pictures of the Generalissimo - on foot and on horseback, in military uniform or dressed as a farmer, sitting at a desk or standing behind a lectern and wearing the presidential sash - that hung on the walls..."*

How To Be A Dictator #5
Well, womanizing could be about any yahoo but the Trump way is creepily sleazy. Trujillo, though, was a notorious libertine specializing in deflowering young virgins. Because dictators do what they want, take what they want, anytime they want.

Trujillo was mortally afraid of being assassinated, which he eventually was, but he ruled for thirty violent years. Baby Trump eats McDonald's because he is afraid of being poisoned. There is certainly an element of self-awareness if one is fearful of being assassinated or poisoned, right?

These are but a few characteristics of someone hellbent on being a dictator. What do you think?

Very highly recommend Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa

* Feast of the Goat, #1 p. 111
* Feast of the Goat, #2 p. 177
* Feast of the Goat, #4 p. 390

How is it possible that the Nation is held hostage by a Trump minority base of dunces?

I've never been a hostage. Before now. I've heard of people being taken hostage, you know, on the evening news, listened with fear for their lives, sympathy for their situation while sipping my cocktail and checking Facebook. With knitted brow, I try to imagine what it must be like to have no control over your life, your very existence in someone else's hands. Well, now I have an inkling of what a hostage feels like because I, and the majority of citizens who are living in the United States, are experiencing the same feeling of loss of control over our lives, of running in a maze with no way out. 

As a hostage must hope, with every cell of their being, that someone is planning to rescue them imminently. We, too, (I'm assuming everyone who is not a trump supporter is 'we') hope and wish/pray that we will soon escape this national hostage nightmare. One thing I can say for sure about us, we are not afflicted with Stockholm Syndrome. (The 'base' likely is but that's for  another time.) The virtual sound of choppers overhead, heroically coming to help us escape, is about a likely as Ivanka making daddy take a truth serum. 

So much has been written and postulated about who those trump supporters are exactly. Are they stupid rural voters who never read a book? Are they greedy white collar pigs who are simply motivated by self-interest, the hell with the planet and poor people? What up with people of color voting for trump...even one? Holy shizzle, who the hell are those 53% white women who voted for him? Or better yet, how about them Obama voters who voted for trump? We know that about 30% of them voted against Hillary but what about the other brain-dead 70%? Seriously, does it even matter, at this point, because those base voters ain't moving from their unwavering position of support: "A Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 96 percent of Trump voters said that supporting Mr. Trump was the right thing to do and 2 percent said they regret their decision."

Here are the numbers when we hear trump's base is at 36%. The total amount of votes was 128,838,341. Hillary got 65,853,516; trump got 62,984,855. trump's stuck-in-quicksand base of 36% is 22,661,591. So, 22, 661,591 fucking people are HOLDING 106,176,780 PEOPLE HOSTAGE! How is that even possible? Pandering to such a minority and 'winning' is incomprehensible to me. Oh, and let's not forget the 90,000,000 reprobates who didn't bother to vote in 2016, and who, I wouldn't be surprised to learn, are railing everyday against POTUS. 

Right now, I can't see a way out of this. The Democrats have no answer except for their exceedingly stupid slogan, "Have you seen the other guys?" I will not go into how exceedingly stupid the Democratic Party is altogether but don't count on them to rescue us. Besides, they don't listen to anyone. Would you say they are paternalistic in their "Father Knows Best" snide treatment of Independent/No Party Affiliation voters? 

As a hostage, I have learned several survival tactics: cocktails, beer, wine, friends (no politics talk), inane tv, staring out a window for several hours to empty your head. It's a good time to organize your closets. What you think would help, but doesn't, is hiking in nature because it only reminds you how trump is coming for the national parks and the planet in general. Sorry, I have no answers or clever repartee. I just wanna know how this hostage situation is allowed to continue. If you have any ideas about 'why', please let me know. 

But you DO know what you have to do: VOTEVOTEVOTE and work your ass off making calls, walk precincts, drive people to the polls, be a poll watcher, register people to vote, write letters to your newspaper (they're still around for now), protest every chance you get. If you've moved, RE-REGISTER TO VOTE. And VOTE 2018.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/california-forum/article150045012.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/california-forum/article150045012.html#storylink=cpy

Illegitimate Trump Régime Inaugurated As The World Weeps

Today is the first day of the rest of our lives. Everything that can be said, has been said about resistance, about trumpageddon, trumpocalypse, facism, dictatorship, corruption, gold-plated toilet seats. My last post, two days before the election November 6, pretty much covered the hellish daily reporting to come: Hillary, Trump, Election 2016. What did we do to deserve this?

I also entreated people: "But wait! Close your eyes and meditate in your time machine back to 2008, three days before the election. Damn! Life was electric! We were in a state of euphoria! Higher than kites with Hope and Change just around the corner! Our adored and esteemed candidate, Barack Hussein Obama, on the cusp of becoming the next President of the United States! OMG, life was good, life was happy. There was no question who we were going to vote for. Working side-by-side for two solid years with love and respect for our fellow volunteers - all over the country I may add - giddily, we went to the polls, thrilled to be able to vote for a candidate we believed in. What a difference eight years make."

Obama's policies didn't produce the hope and change we strived for. On this blog, I wrote impassioned dissents but never once did I question his sincerity, his intellect, his virtue, his charm. I look forward to Citizen Obama emerging as a forceful leader and defender of our rights and forming a new resistance movement. He is inspirational. People will be motivated to join him. 

And now, I want to acknowledge the greatest grassroots campaign this country has ever seen; and, likely, will never see again. Well, not in my lifetime. The Obama '08 campaign ignited a fierce activism. People forged deep connections by working for a singular goal...to elect Barack Hussein Obama the 44th President of the United States. Yes We Did! Two of the best years of my life.

Love abounds for each and every one of you who was part of the campaign. Soon, I will put up a website where we can post our Stories of Self, memories of the grassroots campaign, and where, hopefully, we can reconnect with dear friends we met during the course of the campaign. We will never forget.