He's nuts and senile ...

 

Also preposterous. Let's say it out loud. I bet he aced kindergarten. Subsequently, not so much.

California picks a governor. The return of the gray?

I had thought I might wake up this morning and find myself miserable over the election results in California. But to my surprise, I look at what happened and it seems pretty good. Nothing to get excited about, but no reason to despair of the Golden State either.

The Governor's race: As I've written before, Californians have been spoiled for the last 16 years to have had energetic, intelligent and highly plausible Democratic governors. Yes, there have been multiple occasions on which I disagreed with and even protested Brown and especially Newsom, but they knew a lot about how the state works and tried to accomplish policy wins for their constituents. 

The title of this post refers to their Democratic predecessor Gray Davis who was recalled and replaced in the interesting Arnold Schwarzenegger interlude. Gray was indeed gray; I actually sat at a table with him once at some political dinner and the man had the charisma of a paper napkin. Brown and Newsom came along and set a new standard for high-octane Democratic leaders.

Then, this year, we looked to lurch from these two very qualified pros to a choice from a small bevy of Dems, all except one of whom had little experience in state government. This was jarring; this state is huge and rich and influential and also sometimes needy and fractious. Whoever got to be Governor was going to face a major learning curve.

From a doing-the-job perspective, Katie Porter seemed the best prepared; she understands government as policy and was my choice. But the California electorate quickly decided it wasn't up for an abrasive fat women; that's a reach too far apparently. Congressman Eric Swalwell imploded; lesson to ambitious guys, learn to curb your hormones. 

So for many Democrats, the election came down to which gray candidate could win enough votes to be sure to make the November ballot because, theoretically, if two Republican candidates got the most votes, the splintered Dems would not have a candidate at all. This seemed unlikely, but the horror of the prospect raised the sense of stakes as Primary Day approached. 

We were left with progressive billionaire Tom Steyer and Democratic political fixture Xavier Becerra, a former state legislator, state attorney general and head of Biden's Health and Human Services. And they battled it out. Because neither personally excited much excitement, online the campaign sometimes seemed to exemplify "the narcissism of small differences," the tendency in the heat of conflict to exacerbate minor conflicts in order to draw distinctions which we give excessive weight. I had friends in both camps and I hope they can come together in the aftermath. For a minute there, they were at each other's throats.

It worked out that Steyer's money couldn't overcome Becerra's comforting grayness. Democratic political consultant Gary South identified Steyer's fatal flaw: 

“It may sound facetious to say that you can have too much money in a campaign, but in fact the way these rich self-financing candidates spend their money becomes a liability. …They wear out their welcome.”

L.A. Times political pundit George Skelton catches our former Attorney General's appeal to many:

“Voters are exhausted by Trump. He makes it hard to sleep at night. ‘Cool and calm’ win,” says Chapman University political science professor Fred Smoller. “People want a candidate like a no-drama Becerra.

“The fact he has a charisma deficit may in fact be his political asset.”

But Becerra also has other assets, notes UC San Diego political science professor Thad Kousser — ”legislative and executive experience…. He was safe and predictable.

“And he’s second only to Gavin Newsom in opposing Donald Trump.” 

Besides -- isn't it about time we elected a Latino governor? Seems right. 

We count on Becerra to defeat the surviving Republican in the fall. Party identification plus disgust with Trump ought to do the trick in this blue state. And then we'll come to terms with our latest gray governor.

 • • •

Meanwhile in San Francisco: As well, I have reason to be happy this morning because in my home Congressional district where Nancy Pelosi is finally retiring, a billionaire tech-bro carpetbagger, Saikat Chakrabarti, got handed his walking papers -- driven off the ballot by a hard working Taiwanese immigrant, local Supervisor, Connie Chan. Chan now runs, from behind, against another local fixture, centrist gay policy wonk Scott Wiener. This one is a real San Francisco barn burner replete with scrambled coalitions; at least we haven't sunk so low that our representation in Congress was available to the highest bidder. On to November.

Primary day in CA

Not much here. Voting has been slow at polling sites. After all, eligible Californians received ballots by mail and have multiple options to turn them in. 

Spent the day piloting an election protection scheme, on standby for disruption that wasn't going to happen today. But come November, might it?

Two very quiet polling sites. 

Bibi boasts over Beaufort

Mainstream media have been sharing the news that Israeli forces have seized Beaufort Castle, a Crusader-era high point and fortification on the southern border of Lebanon in a region which is home turf to Israel's foe, Hezbollah. 

The Israelis seem very proud of this conquest, though in modern terms, the ancient "castle" is just some rock piles. Here's the story from Le Monde: 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to push deeper into Lebanon after his military took over the medieval castle of Beaufort on Sunday, May 31, calling it a "dramatic shift" in Israel's campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The Iran-backed militant group, meanwhile, said it targeted Israeli forces near the fortress as well as army positions and infrastructure in Shlomi and Nahariya in northern Israel, while air raid sirens blared in the Acre area. Israeli forces used the Beaufort castle, also known as Qalaat al-Chakif, as a base during their previous two-decade occupation of southern Lebanon that ended in 2000.

"We have returned united, determined and stronger than ever," Netanyahu said in a video statement released after the military took Beaufort. "Now my directive is to deepen and expand our hold in places that were under Hezbollah's control. The capture of Beaufort is a dramatic stage and a dramatic shift in the policy we are leading."

Erudite Partner and I had the chance, thanks to a Lebanese friend, to walk about this eerie spot in 2006, just weeks before that year's Israeli assault on the proud and battered country.

The yellow banner of Hezbollah flew defiantly from the castle's pinnacle then. We didn't see any fighters, though there were rumors that they had tunneled somewhere underneath.

Looking south, across the deep ravine cut by the Litani River, we were looking into Israel where a neat modern settlement had been built.

 

Looking the other way, we could see the Lebanese village of Arnoun. It appeared prosperous in its own way that spring, but very much an organic growth on the hillside, not any kind of planned community.

The contrast between the two towns seemed to exemplify two civilizations. Meanwhile the Crusader castle endured, in between. 

 

I wonder if Beaufort will survive its latest occupants. 

 

I am quite certain that the adjoining Lebanese village is by now destroyed and depopulated. Poor Lebanon, fated to try to survive next to its belligerent neighbor.

Keeping the fire burning ... it's a forever thing

For over a decade, Erudite Partner has been publishing occasional essays at the news site TomDispatch. The editor, Tom Engelhardt, came to publishing from the New England Free Press where he worked in the late 1960s -- in those days, radical publishing meant literally becoming printers of physical flyers as well as books. When I passed through Boston and visited in the spring of 1969, I imagine I met him; there were a lot of nice, earnest young men in the loft where they ran the presses. He later built TomDispatch into a syndication service for writing and distribution of progressive thinking.

 

Like all of us who have worked since the Sixties to tend and sometimes ignite the smoldering coals of struggles for justice, Tom is getting on. Others plan to take up his work in some form as Tom retires. Tom, you have served the people well and truthfully. 

 

Erudite Partner looks back at the more than one hundred essays she has written for Tom in a final piece: About That Arc of the Moral Universe; Sometimes It’s More Like a Meandering Sine Wave.

Where we spend our treasure ...

I found this interview long, meandering, and finally a bit woo-woo. But one observation by Israeli popular intellectual Yuval Harari to the NY Times' Ezra Klein [gift] stayed with me:

... For most of history, a lot of the budget of every kingdom, empire, republic, city state was invested or wasted on soldiers and fortresses and warships and things like that and nobody felt safe. 

One of the miracles of the international systems of recent decades — and this is not about writing pacifist poetry, it’s about government budgets: You look at the budgets, and you see that on average, in the early 21st century, about 6 to 7 percent of the government budget went to defense, to the military, compared with 10 percent on average that went to health care. 

It’s the first time in history that humanity spent more on health care than on defense. They felt more secure than in any previous time in history because there was this taboo on invading and conquering other countries by force. 

If we now break this taboo, it will force everybody to arm themselves to the teeth at the expense of health care, education, welfare and so forth — and nobody will feel safer as a result. 

Because countries and leaders constantly miscalculate. 

In the Vietnam War, the Americans thought they were stronger. It turned out they were wrong. 

Putin was convinced he would crush Ukraine in 48 hours. He was wrong. 

So this vision of basing the peace and order of the world on a hierarchy of strong and weak, with the weak always obeying the strong and thereby buying peace, it has been tried over thousands of years, and we know where it leads. 

It leads, on the one hand, to empire — and on the other hand, to endless wars.

I am not confident I know enough history to confirm Harari's observation about where humans have spent the product of our labor, but it seems plausible. The strong always want to seize it for their lethal pissing contests. 

And I am willing to opine that ordinary people will always, if given a chance, turn the product of their labor to that which enables human flourishing, even though we can be greedy and foolish. Worth thinking about.

¡QUBA! -- Come out, come out wherever you are!

I don't know if this wonderful film is going to get very many more showings in the US. It's been winning awards at international film festivals for a year. We saw ¡QUBA! last night at the Roxie in San Francisco. It's the story of brave Cubans who won the election campaign for gay marriage on the socialist Caribbean island.

Erudite Partner and I visited the island in 1988 and saw some early stirrings which became an eruption of LGBT joy. Cubans are just SO gay and the people found their way to move beyond homophobia. Check the website for future screenings.

A morning walk around Bernal Hill

Actually just the lower flanks of the neighborhood, but it's quite clear what people care about here.

A new crop of signs spring up for the season. 

These San Franciscans are not only vocal, but also verbal.

No good options: Trump lost his war

If only most of the world weren't going to suffer for his foolish hubris.

From Noah Berlatsky: 

You lost a war. Now what?

Trump ... launched a war of aggression against Iran without clear goals, without building domestic political support, without coordinating with allies, and without logistical preparation.

This was not a formula for success, and sure enough, when Iran seized and closed down the Strait of Hormuz instead of capitulating immediately, Trump and his team of dunderheaded and cowardly fascists hesitated briefly and then gave up. Ever since, the president has been searching for a way to back out of his enormously unpopular war in a way that doesn’t make him look like the cowardly dunderheaded fascist he is.

Unfortunately for Trump, though, the people who won the war (that is, Iran) have little to no incentive to let him set terms to make himself look good, or even adequate. Neither do other leaders in the region. As foreign policy scholar Elizabeth N. Saunders explains, Trump has two choices: “Humiliation or (increasingly futile) escalation.”

Escalation is a terrible option for Trump. The US has already shown that bombing alone cannot defeat the Iranian regime. That leaves a ground invasion as the only possible path to something like victory. 

But a YouGov poll at the end of March found that only 14 percent of US adults support sending ground troops into Iran. Among independents, nine percent support ground troops against 66 percent who oppose, and even among Republicans an invasion is a loser, with 30 percent support against 37 percent opposition.

These figures are dismal enough to suggest that significantly ramping up the war could actually cause Trump’s terrible overall approval to fall even further — especially with Republicans (73 percent of whom support the war), and especially if significant numbers of US service people are killed in combat.

So that leaves accepting humiliation.

Unfortunately for Trump, taking the L is also a bad option, because while analysts and experts recognize that he’s lost the war, most of the public hasn’t yet gotten the message. In a poll last week, 32 percent believed that the US is winning the war, while only 16 percent thought the US was losing; 37 percent believed the US would eventually win. That is a significant number of people who are going to be startled if Trump negotiates a “deal” and there are weeks of headlines about how the US lost.

... To sum up, if Trump escalates, people are going to hate him. If he surrenders, people are going to hate him. If he dithers, people are going to hate him. He has no good options, which is why he’s spinning in place, hoping someone, anyone, will rescue him. 

My emphasis. Before reading this, I had not realized that the majority in the U.S. don't yet know Trump had managed to launch a military campaign that our armed forces could not "win" at an acceptable price in lives -- Iranian, U.S. and others. If they weren't being chickenshit, the relevant generals and admirals undoubtedly told him this. Even Trump isn't dumb enough to get his advice from Pete Hegseth. I think ...

For some reason, major U.S. media keep trying to pretend that Iran is going to give Trump a way out. The New York Times has one of those silly headlines as I am writing: "U.S. Officials Say They Are Closing In on Arrangement to Reopen Strait of Hormuz." And then the more likely accurate subhead: "President Trump has not signed off on the emerging framework, according to U.S. officials. But it could set the table for extending the cease-fire and more substantive negotiations." That is, no genuine deal.

Media outlets have been passing along the same false story for weeks. I'll believe it when I see it. I guess we can deduce why so many of us don't yet know the mighty USofA lost Trump's war.

Could we do better?

 

They title this video "Justice." I post this Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee video today, NOT because I think it is either uplifting or effective. I wish it were; there's plenty of injustice afoot in our MAGA moment to be called out and resisted. Take a look -- it is only one minute. What do you think?

My comments, for what they are worth...

• I love Rachel Maddow. She's a truth teller and smart and informed. But if we are to be enlisted by the long struggle of Black Americans, couldn't they have found a Black narrator?

• The historic footage of beatings and tear gas from the 1960s Civil Rights wave of struggle for Black justice are both moving and striking. They always are. We're certainly living in a moment when similar atrocities are possible -- even likely. Thousands of ordinary citizens have been risking their lives to protest thuggish federal overreach; two demonstrators lost their lives in Minnesota. In this time, a few legislators have gotten a bit of the same treatment -- New Jersey Senator Andy Kim tear gassed just a day ago; California Senator Alex Padilla tackled at an LA courthouse -- both on camera. The outraged Black Congressmen here can't verbally convey an authenticity to match the message of intense struggle implied by the Civil Rights era footage.

• The clip of former President Obama is just weird: he looks exhausted and, dare I say it, simply old. I've seen current clips that aren't like that; couldn't they have found footage with a little more energy? 

I don't know whether professional Democratic Party communicators can do better. I wish they would. The Trump shit show certainly demonstrates to all of us that effective resistance has to lead with the people. As the old saying goes, perhaps if the people lead, our leaders will follow.

When not to follow the leader...

Here's an addendum to my previous post about Phillips P. O'Brien's The Strategists: in the introduction to that 2024 book, O'Brien muses about what Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine might reveal about the Russian's capacities as a war leader.

... As this book is being completed, the greatest example of this reality of personal grand-strategy-making is playing out before us.

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, an attempt to create a greater, more powerful Russia, shows once again that grand strategy can be hijacked by deeply flawed individuals over bureaucracies or structures. In no rational world could the Russian invasion of Ukraine be seen as something well thought out or in the Russian national interest. It was poorly conceived, based on a hopeless misreading of Ukrainian intentions and capabilities. The Russian Army was also constructed in such a way that it was far less than the sum of its parts.

While Putin might have had an ends-ways-means plan in his own mind, we can say now that he had poorly constructed means, which he employed in wholly unrealistic ways in a vain attempt to achieve completely unrealistic ends. Yet just before the invasion he was considered perhaps the most savvy and intelligent leader of a major power in the world.

Putin’s grand-strategic performance has in many ways combined the worst strategic traits of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. In a rational world, with a sober evaluation of the Russian Army, one would have imagined a state’s decision-making bureaucracy would have tried to halt his invasion of Ukraine—as one would have imagined the Italian state might have restrained Mussolini from invading Greece, or German influences might have kept Hitler from attacking the Soviet Union with Britain still fighting.

Like the Axis leaders of the 1940s, Putin made war on the Ukraine of his imagination with a military greatly debilitated by corruption and incompetence of which he was either ignorant or unconcerned. Russia ran into something unanticipated in Ukraine. O'Brien's substack chronicles the consequences. It's my go-to source on the Ukraine war and seems honest, though not objective. He knows who he supports.

Of course, Putin is not the only contemporary leader of a powerful military and country who ignorantly substitutes his fantasies for any coherent plan or strategy.