Our various histories: complexity meets MAGA

Civil War historian Kevin M. Levin alerted me to an important unveiling in our nation's (currently occupied) capitol.

... a 6-feet tall, 600-pound statue of President Abrahan Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation was installed on the steps of the soon-to-be opened African American Civil War Museum in the Shaw neighborhood of DC. “Liberty and Union” is inscribed at the base. 

The statue will officially be dedicated on September 22, the day Lincoln issued the preliminary proclamation and the museum will hopefully open to the public after years of renovation and delays in November.

This historic Black neighborhood, named in honor of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, has its roots in the Civil War, when thousands of enslaved men, women, and children flocked to the city for shelter and freedom. The military established Camp Barker in this neighborhood early in the war, a contraband camp that was eventually moved to the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery.

Here the creators of the statue and museum officials proudly describe their new work to DC local news.

Levin brings forward a less boosterish view of Lincoln put forward in 1900 by Archibald Grimké, son of a South Carolina slaver and the slaver's "property," Nancy Weston. Archibald Grimké grew up to found the NAACP. 

In Howard’s American Magazine, Grimké wrote:

It seems to me that it is high time for colored Americans to look at Abraham Lincoln from their own standpoint, instead of from that of their white fellow-citizens. We have surely a point of view equally with them for the study of this great man’s public life, wherin it touched and influenced our history. Then why are we invariably found in their place on this subject, as on kindred ones, and not in our own? 

Are we never to find ourselves and our real thought on men and things in this country, and after finding them are we to deny to them expression, for fear of giving offence? Are we to be forever a trite echo, an insignificant ‘me too’ to the white race in America on all sorts of question, even on those which concern peculiarly and vitally our past, present and future relations to them?... 

I hope not; I do most devoutly pray not. For if we are ever to occupy a position in America other than that of mere dependents and servile imitators of the whites, we must emancipate ourselves from this species of slavery, as from all others. And the sooner a beginning is made in this regard the better. With whom then can we more appropriately begin this work of intellectual emancipation than with Abraham Lincoln, the emancipator?

…. Was Abraham Lincoln a great American? Yes, certainly. Was he one of the greatest of American statesmen? Yes, assuredly. Was he a great philanthropist? No. Was he a great friend of human liberty and the Negro, like Garrison, Sumner, and Phillips? No, a thousand and one times, no! For the sake of truth let us answer ‘yes’ every time where ‘yes’ agrees with the facts of history and ‘no’ where simple honesty forbids and other reply. And then let us be done, once and forever, with all this literary twaddle and glamour, fiction and myth-making, which pass unchallenged for facts in the wonder-yarns which white men spin of themselves, their deeds and demigods.

The several views represented here -- those of the museum builders, of Grimké, of Levin -- demonstrate why surviving the Trump regime is going to require, among other priorities, struggling to preserve complexity in our understanding of our past. Over the last few decades, historians of the American experiment have drawn a nuanced picture of where we come from. MAGA would reduce our story to simplistic patriotic bluster.

That's not good enough. Recognizing complicated history enables us to live and grow into an ever more complex, free, and equal nation and society. Disestablishing the crushing burden of past lies enables us live together in present truths. 

To live in the light of truth is hard, but to survive without truth is ultimately impossible.

From the 'hood in these scary times

Latino Heritage Month celebrations kicked off in the San Francisco Mission District yesterday. A few blocks away from the costumes and the Lowriders, somebody had something to say.

Our "hood has not yet experienced Trump's full assault. But folks are getting ready. And meanwhile, they threw a fine street party.

Latino Heritage Months marks the anniversaries when many nations south of the US border gained independence from European colonizers.

9/15 - Independence Day for Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua

9/16 - Mexico Independence Day

9/18 - Chile Independence Day

The California community college in Barstow, CA offers a nice description of the history of these festivities geared to people who find the notion of Latino Heritage unfamiliar. This is significant, as I presume the Trump regime will try to outlaw such information.

Eyes on the prize: "what are you going to do about it?"

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo would certainly want to say his web newsroom is a very small fish in the media ocean. But he built it from nothing; it's solvent; and it feels unique to me, anchored by Marshall's sense of history and society. (Like Marshall, I'm a dropout from academic history studies who never stopped learning from our past.)

He has potent thoughts about the Trump regime's attempt to cow and conquer our information sources in the wake of the Kirk assassination. I think Marshall would say this was always where Trump was going; the murder of one right wing agitator is just a convenient pretext.

Marshall's insights are not all bleak. The old media system is collapsing, but interest in consuming what he calls "non-gelded" media is likely to replace or even exceed what is repressed by corporate conglomerate dynosaurs that do Trump's bidding. The moment makes this possible.

Nonetheless his summation of our situation is bracing. Here's a portion of it: 

... most elected Democrats remain in the mode of believing they are a party of government temporarily out of power. They are that too. 

But really they’re an opposition party in the midst of an attempted authoritarian takeover of the American Republic. That means many things. But here’s one of the most important. Last night Sen. Chris Murphy went on Bluesky (and likely other platforms) denouncing [Trump Federal Communications Commission  Chair Brendan] Carr’s criminal and unconstitutional actions — a “history making abuse of your power” he called it. Murphy went on to say, “It will define your legacy and one day you will come to regret punishing free speech and trying to destroy democracy.”

It was the best thing I’d seen any elected official say in response to yesterday’s events and one of the only meaningful ones. But on the next round, I’d recommend Murphy put a finer edge on those remarks. 

I don’t care and I suspect Carr doesn’t care about one day regretting some principle he transgressed. He knows what he’s done. Just one year ago he was on X saying that “free speech” is the “counterweight” to tyranny. “That’s why censorship is the authoritarian’s dream,” Carr wrote at the time. He knows what he’s doing. 

I want lawmakers to be telling people like Carr and his ilk not that they’ll have regrets but that they’ll face consequences.

I hear all these people telling me how there won’t be a 2026 election, or that it won’t be free and fair or a bunch of other things. My question to them, or maybe to you is, what are you going to do about it? 

History is long. No one is in the saddle forever. It is critical for an opposition to give the people a vision of forward trajectory in time, that this isn’t the end of the story, that consequences can be delayed but not evaded. It’s such a demonstrable point. Think even of the longest lasting fascist or authoritarian dictatorships. Franco? About 35 years. Pinochet? 16 years, ousted by a referendum. 

I don’t imagine this will last for even a tiny fraction of that length of time. My point is simply to demonstrate the incontestable point: no one remains in the saddle forever. That’s true even in the most extreme cases. A reckoning comes and everyone needs to be on notice.

Trump is already unpopular. He is getting more unpopular. His actions are unpopular. 

It is the elites, the big diversified corporations and monopolies who have tossed aside most rapidly Americans’ instinctive disdain for kings and dictators. 

It’s down at the most democratic level of our system where the resistance is strongest and growing — juries that refuse to indict or convict amid Trump’s bogus crime crackdown, voters who are showing they’ve had enough. 

He slashes at the civic orthodoxies and values we were all raised on. This remains his opposition’s greatest advantage. It simply needs to be exploited. 

Adam Smith says there’s a lot of ruin in a nation. There’s a lot of ruin in a democracy. We’re in a very bad situation. To me, all I care about is what to do in response. ...

Do read it all.

Friday cat blogging -- signs of the season

 

Janeway knows what is important to the humans in this household and even looks on ...

 

We haven't always turned on the furnace this fall, but we have got out a quilt.

Mio knows what that perch is for: day sleeping. For night sleeping, he prefers to get between us.

And we are not powerless ...

Last night I learned that late night comic Jimmy Kimmel had been fired by Disney/ABC when I saw a friend's social media post: "we are canceling our subscription to Disney tonight!" WTF???

Apparently Kimmel had committed "wrong speech" about the Charlie Kirk assassination. Trump wanted the critical comedian gone and his hatchet man at the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, put the screws to the cooperative media conglomerate.

Our household doesn't have a Disney subscription, so we can't cancel that. 

But tireless Jay Kuo, lawyer and human rights activist, pointed to Christopher Armitage's useful prescription for letting the corporate big boys know that people are outraged.

Here's Kuo's abbreviated summary:

... corporations only understand when their money is at risk.

That means we aren’t powerless. We can do at least four things to hurt them where it matters:

1. Cancel Disney+ and tell them why.
2. Call/email/mail those companies to complain.
3. Screenshot and tag advertisers asking why they support censorship.
4. Share this playbook with others.

There often comes a point where those in power become cocky and badly overreach, misreading the room and handing the opposition an opportunity. When voices from all sides of the political spectrum come together in condemnation, we know we have hit such a point.

Wading into the culture wars with full-on censorship and cancellations will backfire. Comedians like Kimmel and Colbert are beloved figures who speak hard truths in entertaining, accessible ways to millions. The fascist right has nothing like their star power, and it has no sense of irony or comedy, which is why it is so threatened by such figures. 

... The right has managed to take a national conversation about Kirk’s murder and turn it into one about authoritarian censorship. That’s a huge unforced error, and we should exploit it. 

If we care about free speech and blunting fascism, we must keep speaking. 

Charlie Kirk as a political prop for Donald

In this post, I am going to give readers a good chunk of basketball GOAT Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's reaction to the murder of Charlie Kirk. I sometimes think of Kareem as "the last rational man standing," often insistent on a level of simple common sense which contemporary culture has a hard time holding onto.

To get my own cards on the table: I believe that to murder Charlie Kirk was wrong. Murdering anyone is wrong. And also that Charlie Kirk, in his public life, was a bad guy -- a professional racist, misogynist, and homophobe who not only was pushing noxious ideas, but worse, organizing to give these ideas concrete power. If you think this assertion requires documentation, I give you Jamelle Bouie or Moira Donegan.

After passing along Kareem, I'll add a couple thoughts of my own on some of the commentary flying about. 

Here's Kareem:

I’m not going to discuss Charlie Kirk the man or the political figure. Instead, I’m going to discuss the gleeful abuse of Charlie Kirk as his figurative corpse is dragged through the media by the Right the way Achilles dragged Hector’s corpse around the walls of Troy. The MAGA alchemists have transformed a tragic death into the political theater of clothes-rending professional mourners that diminishes not just the performers, but all of us forced to watch. 

One can almost hear their collective sighs of relief as they have a distraction from Epsteingate, the devastating economic news of the rise of inflation, the loss of jobs due to tariffs, and polls revealing Trump’s further drop in approval.

... Let’s start with the most obvious observation: Most political assassins or would-be assassins don’t represent any political party, any more than an avowed Christian KKK lynch mob represents Jesus’s teachings. People with severe mental health issues—like murderers, rapists, child molesters, arsonists, etc.—may outwardly profess certain beliefs, but their actions are a perversion of those beliefs. 

Therefore, for anyone to publicly proclaim that the ideology they have perverted is the cause of their violence is like blaming Jesus for the lynching. Only the most simple-minded would believe this. Only the most evil would try to whip up political fervor using this accusation.

What kind of person uses this tragedy to gain political points over their adversaries? The same kind of damaged and deranged person who would assassinate someone. The assassin and the person who tries to benefit from the assassination are kindred spirits.

As usual, art is one of the first things blamed. An episode of South Park made fun of Kirk (as it has of most political figures), but an immediate backlash appeared online as some called for its cancellation (cancel culture?). The first reaction of the ignorant is to silence opposition. Why ignorant? Because if they were truly supporters of Kirk, they would have known that he openly praised South Park and thought the skit about him was “hilarious.” 

But then, they don’t really care about Kirk the man—only about Kirk the political prop to promote their cause. They have Weekend at Bernies-ed him for their own morbid use.

As he does every time he needs to distract his supporters from his failures, Trump swaggers into the saloon, gets the patrons riled up on violent rhetoric, then leads them out into the streets with their torches and rope, pointing at who they should lynch. “We have radical left lunatics out there,” Trump told reporters. “And we just have to beat the hell out of them.” BEAT THE HELL OUT OF THEM!! 

So, he’s condemning violence by promoting violence against innocent people. He also added, “We have to be brave,” before bravely suppressing his grief over the death of a man he referred to as a martyr so he could attend a Yankees game. So brave.

Remember, Trump is the same guy who said, when running against Hilary Clinton, “By the way, and if she gets to pick—if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks, although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.” A “joke” about assassinating Clinton? And he still got elected. Twice. Maybe that kind of rhetoric encourages people to act violently toward politicians on both sides. After all, assassination is endorsed by the president.

Trump not only blamed “the radical left” for the shooting, he also vowed that his administration “will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity, and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials and everyone else who brings order to our country.” 

It might be hard to suppress your gag reflex when you consider how Trump publicly lambasted any judge who ruled against him (and that’s a lot of judges), making each of them a target for his more violent followers (like the ones on Jan. 6 who wanted to hang Mike Pence). His statement implies there is some nefarious organization, rather than the more likely lone gunman. This allows him to then investigate any group opposed to him on the possibility that they were involved. The hope is that the threat alone will silence critics.

After a moment of silence on the House floor in honor of Kirk, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), who worked as Kirk's director of Hispanic engagement at Turning Point USA, stood up and shouted at Democrats: “You caused this!” 

It gets worse. Utah Republican U.S. Senator Mike Lee called Kirk’s murder “a cowardly act of violence” and spouted off about how “The terrorists will not win.” ...

The sad part of these accusations isn’t the fact that they all can be logically and factually disproven: it’s that the perpetrators already know this but say it anyway because they have such contempt for their followers that they don’t think they’ll notice the stupidity of the statements.

Blaming Democrats or the Left is just a shameful attempt to use Kirk’s death as a political tool. The fiery passion in these accusations is a stage performance. The irony, of course, is that accusing anyone or any group of being responsible for Kirk’s death based on their politics riles up the violent crazies to now physically attack those being vilified. Trump and his MAGAs’ outraged finger-pointing is putting targets on people that bear no responsibility at all. If MAGA had the mental capacity to see the hypocrisy in their actions, they might feel shame; but that is an emotion they are incapable of. ...

The true agenda of using Kirk’s death as both a shroud of indignation and a loaded weapon at political rivals was clearly stated by Trump when he was asked on Fox & Friends about his plan to help bring the country back together. His answer: “I couldn’t care less.” 

That about sums up his attitude toward all Americans who aren’t billionaires or who don’t vote for him. Perhaps it will be stitched onto a red cap as his new campaign slogan: “I couldn’t care less.” 

• • • 

A few thoughts from me and then I'll let this topic go, though MAGA certainly will try to keep their fable of Kirk going forever.

Former Washington Post data guy and now freelancer Philip Bump opined:

Just because I saw someone mention it: There’s no reason to think that TPUSA/Kirk had a significant effect on the 2024 election. The turnout operation was non-existent and claims that they/he are the central (or even a major) cause of young voters moving right aren’t backed by any actual evidence.

TP/Kirk had a very good reason to pretend they were essential and many in the media aren’t positioned to evaluate such claims. With due modesty, I am positioned better than most. 

Well maybe. That's pretty much what the data guys will always say about quantifying the impact of grassroots volunteer para-campaign efforts. He's right that the people who organize these have a financial incentive to exaggerate their effectiveness; funders want to be shown results. And in many circumstances, skepticism may be in order. But in some circumstances, knee jerk disbelief in volunteer mobilizations is probably wrong. When mobilizations operate in fertile -- that is not-already exhausted turf -- the sheer number of the newly activated volunteers and voters can marginally change the results. I've led such operations from the opposite side from Kirk. Kirk was operating in exactly that sort of terrain.

• • •

Lisa Needham offered a perceptive thought:

... [the reason] so much praise is being lavished on Kirk is that Republicans don’t really have anyone else to admire. In the Trump era, there are no heroes.

Trump, with his tacky, mobster-esque authoritarianism, values two things above all else: fealty and malleability. People with core, immutable values, people in public service, people who would sacrifice themselves for a cause — these are not people who can exist within the modern Republican Party. As far as Trump is concerned, those people are chumps. ... Americans who gave their lives to turn back the tide of fascism during World War II? Suckers and losers, per Trump.

• • •

I'll leave the disgusting way Republicans can be expected to mobilize transphobia, given what has so far emerged about the shooter. I fear we'll be wondering next whether MAGA really does object to murder ... Let's hope not.

Sanitizing white history

If MAGA won't display this, I will. At the behest of the Trump administration, this photo of the back of an American slave has been removed from a National Park site.  After liberation, this survivor rose to the rank of sergeant in the Union army during the Civil War.

 

By way of David Kurtz, TPM. 

Some of our tech billionaires have lost it

 

A rowdy little demonstration greeted the tech-bro billionaire's appearance at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco this evening. His lecture series is on the topic of the Anti Christ. ... he suggests (seriously!) that activist Greta Thunberg might actually be the anti-christ we should fear. 

Being rich is no guarantee against stupid. Dude seems to think he's hooked into demonic forces. Perhaps he is a demon? This sort of fantasy doesn't usually end well.

Meanwhile, he doesn't care who he hurts. PLTR is the stock symbol for his corporation Palantir which is providing the data for mass public surveillance of our communities, the violent lCE kidnapping of immigrants, the genocide in Gaza, union-busting efforts and more.  

Thiel has stated his opposition to democracy, he actively supports defunding universities and public education, and aligns with Christian Nationalist movements that support white supremacy and the subjugation of women. He might wear a suit-and-tie and use his immense wealth for influence - but he dreams of a techno-feudalist society.

Some folks have other ideas.

Target's broken promises to Black community spur boycott

When an economic actor is already on the skids, that's the moment to push harder, not to compromise. 

Under intense competition from the likes of Walmart and Amazon online, Target -- the huge mid-American retailer -- has plenty to worry about. Consumers are complaining of messy stores and poorly stocked shelves. 

The number of Americans who say they regularly shop at Target has gone down 19% since 2021, according to GWI, a behavioral attitudinal data provider. The number of Americans who say they do not shop at Target has risen 17%. 

Further, Target is backing out of promises made to the African American community.

... the company had heavily touted a commitment to DEI back in 2020 after protests erupted across the nation over the murder of George Floyd. That year, Target announced it would increase representation of Black staff by 20% over three years and invest $10 million in social justice organizations. In 2021, the company pledged to dedicate more than $2 billion toward Black-owned businesses before the end of 2025.

In January, however, Target said it would conclude the hiring and advancement goals it had set. 

Then the company contributed $1 million to Donald Trump's inauguration fund ...

African American leaders think the retailer owes respect to its customers' community, not to a billionaire President.

Pastor leading Target boycott on its impact and the retailer's response
Target is reeling as sales have stalled and its stock price has plunged. The company faced backlash after a rollback of its DEI initiatives prompted a boycott that slowed store traffic nationwide, one of the factors that pushed CEO Brian Cornell to step down. Now, Target is scrambling to reset its image. Geoff Bennett discussed more with Pastor Jamal Bryant, who spearheaded the Target boycott.

Interviewer Geoff Bennett: ... Why single out Target when this appears to be a broader corporate retreat? 

Pastor Jamal Bryant, senior pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Georgia: After the inauguration of Trump, 23 corporations backed away from inclusion and we thought it prudent to just go after one at the time. The African American community spends upwards of 12 million dollars a day at Target. We thought that the one that was the most trafficked should be the focus of our media attention. 

Bennett: ... it's striking that Target hasn't reinstated its DEI program even as it struggles with declining sales, sluggish foot traffic. ...

Pastor Bryant: I think that diversity is in as much danger as democracy is. The president of Target as well as of Amazon and Walmart met with the President [Trump] back in February. I think they have held on to his admonishment more than what the consumers are clamoring to say. 

Bennett: ... [Target] highlights a $2 billion investment in Black-owned businesses, more than doubling the number of Black-owned brands on its shelves, supporting more than 500 entrepreneurs, completing a more than $100 million investment in Black-led community organizations. Why do you see those efforts as insufficient?

Pastor Bryant: ... they produce no receipts. $2 billion but they have not been forthcoming as to what entities are the recipients of it. ... We'd love to put a ribbon on it, but if Black companies or Black banks were the recipients, they would be clamoring to announce it and yet we're in the silence of the lambs. ...

... [Target] is one of the lead employers of African Americans. They are the beneficiaries of African American consumption.

... When George Floyd died, they made the pledge of $2 billion and then it stalemated. It was supposed to be turned over to us on July 31. And we still are not seeing anything. We are reasonable and amenable... but none of those requests have been responded to.

Bennett: What's the end game if Target does not meet your requests?

Pastor Bryant: Then they will continue to hemorrhage. ... with 9.7 percent of foot traffic being slowed down, online sales being slowed down, the stock continuing to plummet ... I think it is time of for the share holders to make their voice clear ...

The Montgomery bus boycott went for a year and a day. This is just our fifth month. ...

Bennet: How do you see yourself leveraging this kind of power on other issues?

Pastor Bryant: ... this is the first real organizing power of Black economic strength in 70 years and a lot of  corporations are waiting to see what will be the outcome ... this generation needs a victory, that our collective works are not in vain ...

This boycott is the real thing -- not just performative hand waving. Like the Tesla Takedown, the boycott takes aim at a corporation which counts on the good reputation of its brand and which is fouling that brand through association with the Trump regime. And it hurts Target. Market researchers report: 

Since last year, the number of regular Target shoppers who identify as Democrat has declined 13%. Inversely, the number of Republican customers has risen 13%. It's not clear if that is due to Target’s $1 million donation to Trump's inauguration or some other factors. 

The boycott is spreading beyond its founding base in Black churches. Over Labor Day, the American Federation of Teachers joined the movement, hoping to cut into Target's Back to School business.  

AFT President Randi Weingarten explained: 

This movement comes at a crucial moment—when American workers find themselves at the whim of billionaires and board rooms that are more invested in money over people. We want this resolution—and the full weight of our nearly 2 million members—to be a reminder to Target that there are consequences to dismissing the will of the American worker and that, until they do right, our members will be spending their money in places they feel respected and recognized. 

Boycott Target! This is yet another way to assert there's more to this country than MAGA!  

The 'hood has a point of view

Bus shelter on 24th Street, San Francisco

 

 

 

Friday cat blogging

Such a picture of peace and contemplation. This doesn't capture the mad ruckus the two cats sometimes create in the middle of the night. But Mio and Janeway make lovely sentries for Erudite Partner in quiet moments.

Enough Killing

Twenty-four years after September 11, 2001 and just hours after an apparently political murder of right wing agitator Charlie Kirk, it seems right to resurrect this image.

The "Enough Killing" sign was my household's instinctive response to 9/11. Within a week, we'd made and distributed these to anyone who would display them. Here in San Franciscon, there were quite a few who did.

We knew the New York and DC terrorist attacks would unleash yet more responsive violence; the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were our country's mad answer to the atrocity by the terrorists. Hundreds of thousands in faraway places died in answer to the Twin Towers. (The photo is of my then-church marching in a peace procession in 2006; the blonde child is a full grown man now.)

Charlie Kirk will not be missed by those of us who were his targets. But Enough Killing remains what we all need to find as a path forward..

The time to act is NOW

 

Every day, web sites I read throw me videos, chats, short films. And every day I ignore them. I hate the turn to video -- it's slow and it seldom uses the medium particularly imaginatively. 

 

I'm a fossil; I like good writing and will put in the effort to read it.

 

Yet today I'm posting a powerful nine minute video from historian Heather Cox Richardson. She insists "We Cannot Wait for the Ballot Box in November 2026 | Explainer." 

... The administration is trying desperately to rig the 2026 elections so they don't have to face voters any more. ...

 

... it seems pretty clear that Trump is not in good shape ... these Epstein files that have come out are going to make Republicans look worse and worse ...

 

... As Trump increasingly weakens, you are going to see more and more frenzy to lock up the country because they think that we who believe in democracy don't really have a say in it ... they think we are polluting the country. ...

 

... We have the majority and we feel very strongly about it and we have on our side the great thinkers of the United States ... not the great thinkers of the Nazis [that] they are following ... we have James Madison, and we have Abraham Lincoln, and we have Fanny Lou Hamer ... [these Americans'] principles are very much more the principles of the majority than that a few rich guys ought to rule. ...

 

... It is not a question of waiting until November 2026 to cast a vote. By then the die will be cast. We will know what the future looks like ...

 

... The time to speak up is NOW. ... the time to make sure your neighbors understand what is going on is NOW. ...

 

... NOW is the time as Trump is weak and Republicans recognize that he is weakening to make sure they understand how profoundly unpopular this is ... 

 

... What this is going to look like on the other side, I don't know. Another generation is coming. But we won't have that generation unless we save it NOW. ...

 

... The thing to do is throw your weight in at the local level, the state level, the national lever, talking to people, making sure that individuals truly recognize what is going on ...

 

... The more noise people can make NOW, the better our chances of safeguarding the election in 2026  ... for all the anxiety that people are feeling, turn that anxiety into some kind of action, because sitting around worrying about what is going to come is not going to help you or anybody ... Find a friend ... find something to do ..

 

Trump is not popular ... he's crashing the economy ... think Herbert Hoover, not Mussolini.

 

... Trump only punches down ... the more we can stand up to him and his minions, the more likely they are to back down.

 

... if you can see what is happening, then you can see the pressure points to change what is happening ...

... If this is the world we got, we've got to find out ways to make it better and to preserve our democracy for the people who come after us. ...

The historian has become an organizer. I seldom offer a higher compliment. The moment demands that we all, in our own ways, become organizers for democracy.

Supreme Court legalizes racial profiling. What Constitution is this?

According to the NY Times:

The Supreme Court on Monday lifted a federal judge’s order prohibiting government agents from making indiscriminate immigration-related stops in the Los Angeles area ... The court’s brief order was unsigned and gave no reasons. ...

The court’s three liberal members dissented.

“We should not have to live in a country where the government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish and appears to work a low wage job,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

“Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost,” Justice Sotomayor added, “I dissent.”

... Civil rights groups and several individuals filed suit, accusing the administration of unconstitutional sweeps in which thousands of people had been arrested. They described the encounters in the suit as “indiscriminate immigration operations” that had swept up thousands of day laborers, carwash workers, farmworkers, caregivers and others.

“Individuals with brown skin are approached or pulled aside by unidentified federal agents, suddenly and with a show of force,” the complaint said, “and made to answer questions about who they are and where they are from,” violating the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures.

There will be further litigation, but it seems abundantly clear that this Supreme Court recognizes no constitutional rights for Brown people and people who don't speak English.

This country has been here before. In 1857, a Supreme Court captured by slave-holding interests, declared that African-descended persons did not enjoy the protection of the law.

Chief Justice  Roger Taney:  such persons "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect..."

That time around, the breach of the national legal system led to violence within the states and, soon, the bloody Civil War been the free Union and the enslaving South. The modern court has adopted the same standard. We can only hope we can come out of this without so much violence. If this is really the meaning of the US Constitution, we, the people of these United States, probably cannot come out with that document intact.

Sherrilyn Ifill, one of the nation's leading civil rights lawyers and former head of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, responded to Justice Kavanaugh's airy defense of the Court:

Kavanaugh’s description [of ICE raids] reads as though it were downloaded from the Department of Homeland Security’s website. Almost every word of this is preposterous. “Brief investigative stops” at places where undocumented immigrants are likely to work? What we have seen repeatedly are not “stops.” They are grabs and kidnapping. Most often, no questions are asked. Even when colleagues have insisted that the person targeted by ICE agents are here legally, or that they are citizens, ICE agents proceed to tackle, beat, cuff, and spirit away individuals they have targeted. And we have seen migrants detained and forcibly taken into custody as often in courthouses after immigration hearings, or in neighborhoods cutting lawns as at Home Depot. 

That Kavanaugh could so haplessly could make this statement just days after South Korean nationals authorized to work as engineers at a Georgia EV battery plant were arrested, shackled and taken into custody by ICE after an immigration raid in what has become an international incident, demonstrates how utterly out of touch he is.

Kavanaugh assures us that it is no problem to be apprehended, taken to a facility – perhaps several states away – until you can prove that you are a legal resident or citizen. This is his idea of democracy – a country in which citizens and legal residents who are Black, Latino or Asian, and who happen to work in “locations where people are hired for day jobs” must carry proof of citizenship (their “freedom papers,” if you will) or risk apprehension by masked thugs who will hold them perhaps for months.

The fantasy world Kavanaugh describes is the kind of world in which clueless white men (or deliberately obtuse white men) in positions of power were permitted to languish before the Civil Rights Movement brought the reality of life for marginalized people into American living rooms in technicolor. ...

When a Court legalizes thuggish racist violence, normalizes this, the national rule of law is truly in the toilet. Will the rest of us just carry on silently?

International rules against torture breaking down

Russia wants out of the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Punishment which it signed onto 1996. 

According to Radio Liberty (thanks to Google translate): 

Putin submitted to the state Duma a draft on the denunciation of the Convention against torture...

After withdrawing from the convention, Russia will no longer be obliged to admit international inspectors to its prisons. Complaints from Russian prisoners to the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture will no longer be considered. 

The United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) has reported extensive Russian torture of captured Ukrainians.

“Almost every single one of the Ukrainian POWs we interviewed described how Russian servicepersons or officials tortured them during their captivity, using repeated beatings, electric shocks, threats of execution, prolonged stress positions and mock execution. Over half of them were subjected to sexual violence,” said Danielle Bell who heads HRMMU. “Most POWs also recounted the anguish of not being allowed to communicate with their families, and being deprived of adequate food and medical attention.” 

Although the United States has historically been allergic to international treaties which might subject acts by our citizens to international judgement, we signed the analogous United Nations Convention against torture in 1988 and ratified in 1994. 

I doubt somehow doubt that the Trump/Hegseth regime gives a damn about internationally recognized bars to torture. But one hopes most American citizens might.

Trump comes after Black women when he attacks economic stability

Paul Krugman, who is a Nobel prize winner unlike one Orange-tinted pretender, knows the score. It's hard to manage an enormous economy well. Krugman explains this requires a smart balancing act. That's why we have (had?) an independent  Federal Reserve Board, to make economic decisions as impartially as any democratic political system allows.

When the inflation rate is low but the unemployment rate is high, as it was during the Great Recession in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the Fed should cut the federal funds rate. By lowering the fed funds rate, the Fed makes it cheaper for banks to lend. This boosts the spending and investing activity in the economy and brings unemployment down.

When inflation is high but unemployment is low – that is, when the economy is at risk of overheating -- as it was in 2022, the Fed should raise the fed funds rate. This slows down spending and investing and brings inflation down.

But when the unemployment rate and the inflation rate are both too high — what economists call “stagflation” — the Fed faces a dilemma. Cut the fed funds rate rates to support employment and you risk worsening inflation. Raise the fed funds rate to fight inflation and you risk raising unemployment. With stagflation, there are no easy answers, just a tradeoff of risks.

And this dilemma looks very relevant right now: many economic indicators suggest that the United States will soon undergo at least mild stagflation. ...

Not a moment when you want more buffoons in charge. But here we are with the Orange Madman in the White House.

Most likely, if Trump gets his way with the Fed, the country will drift into an economic doom loop which will be bad for ordinary folks as prices rise and jobs disappear -- and  Donald Trump isn't interested in any of this. He's got a bunch of crackpot ideas which defy the experience of over 100 years of advanced capitalist economies. And he wants unlimited power over the Fed to force it to implement his notions.

Lisa Cook

It should be no surprise that Trump has fixated on a Black woman as the impediment to his economic fantasies. Lisa Cook is an experienced, accomplished economist. And she's the first Black woman ever appointed to the Federal Reserve Board. So Trump's corrupt Department of Justice is accusing her of unproven mortgage malfeasance. Cook properly refuses to resign just because Trump has trumped up a complaint. She's forcing Trump to go to court to try to fire her. Guess sometime down the line we'll get yet another chance to see just how far Trump's supine Supremes will go to please Daddy.

Meanwhile, the Trump economy and especially federal workforce cuts are already disproportionately kicking Black women to the curb.

Erica Green describes the carnage:

... The most recent labor statistics show that nationwide, Black women lost 319,000 jobs in the public and private sectors between February and July of this year, the only major female demographic to experience significant job losses during this five-month period,...

Experts attribute those job losses, in large part, to Mr. Trump’s cuts to federal agencies where Black women are highly concentrated. 

White women saw a job increase of 142,000, and Hispanic women of 176,000, over the same time period. White men saw the largest increase among groups, 365,000, over the same time period. 

Ms. Roy said that with the exception of the pandemic, Black women have never seen such staggering losses in employment. And over the last decade, the experiences of that population have consistently signaled what is to come for others. 

“Black women are the canaries in the coal mine, the exclusion happens to them first,” Ms. Roy said. “And if any other cohort thinks it’s not coming for them, they’re wrong. This is a warning, and it’s a stark one.” 

... a report published by the National Women’s Law Center, which compiled and analyzed the now-deleted O.P.M. [the federal Office of Personnel Management] data, showed that government agencies that were targeted for the deepest cuts had employed the highest percentages of women and people of color. ...

He's coming for all of us who can't pay him off -- but he's coming first for Black women. That's how it works in this country.

Margaret Atwood speaks up for free expression

Wise old women are not always comfortable to have around. Canadian author Margaret Atwood would be the first to agree. Speaking (via Zoom) to the international writers conference of PEN held in Krakow, Poland, on September 2, the 85 year old writer applied her reflections on history to the decline of her country's big neighbor.

... We ourselves are living through what appears to be the collapse of an existing structure of power – that of the United States. Externally, the U.S. seems to be abdicating its position as the dominant world power. Internally, it appears to be turning its back on its one-time much celebrated status as an open, liberal democracy – the torch-carrier for freedom, a beacon of light to oppressed Soviet satellites during the Cold War – and flirting with the very kind of autocracy that it once stood so firmly against.

Outside its borders, other counties are no longer doing what it says – witness Russia, Israel, Ukraine, and India, just for example. Wars and power struggles are breaking out all over. And inside its borders, the present administration seems determined to destroy or co-opt American institutions that have been built up over centuries. A fair voting system, a judiciary independent of the executive power, just to name two. 

The secretary of Health Care, for instance, seems to be conducting some weird Social Darwinist experiment – survival of the fittest – let’s see who lives and who dies if we remove all protection against deadly diseases. What’s the goal? Who even knows? The elimination of poor people, because they aren’t healthy enough? It wouldn’t surprise me. 

The use of the military to intimidate civilians is another signpost; many countries in mid-century Europe were all too familiar with that.

One of the harbingers of autocratic takeovers is an attempt to control writers and artists, either by censoring them and dictating to them what sort of art they should produce – we saw a certain amount of that coming from the so-called academic left in North America and Britain over the past decade, twinned with online mobbing generally known as “cancel culture”– or by book banning and the intimidation of universities and media outlets, which we are now seeing on a rather large scale in the United States. The levers are money and lawsuits, but these have been quite effective. Most people with jobs are by nature fearful of challenging authority, or at least any authority with the power to fire them. 

I look back to the French Revolution – the prototype of all revolutions since – and remark merely that one of its first stated goals was freedom of expression, a value it espoused until its leaders gained power. Then, miraculous to behold, strict censorship set in, printing presses were smashed, and those who had published questionable views were beheaded. 

During the Terror, you could be executed for just being suspected of thinking counterrevolutionary thoughts – Thoughtcrime, as Orwell would have it. People entering the United States are currently having their phones and computers searched for evidence of Thoughtcrime against the Trump administration.

Self-supporting writers don’t fear being fired. Their employers are their readers. For this reason, they are often asked to speak about difficult subjects, and to say things publicly that many other people are thinking privately. And that is why I am here with you today – because I don’t have a job. ...

Beware of revolutions, perhaps. We need revolutionary imagination, courage and some visionary energy. But beware of revolutionaries, absolutely. In this, I'm with my old lady comrade.

Trump and MAGA are vicious and dangerous ...

They are also ridiculous. Let's not forget it.

Free DC and Free the USofA!

Friday cat blogging

Do you think Mio would make a good mayor? I think he'd be a contender if we held an election like the one in Somerville, Massachusetts. He projects such gravitas, such sincerity. His platform -- unlimited kibble and unlimited naps for all. 

But the candidates for mayor in the bike path election profiled in the Guardian are outdoor beasts. Mio is under a permanent rule: "cats don't go out." Mostly he seems to understand this. One time when he didn't, he bit a pit bull. Never again!

Kareem speaks up for prayer

Sometimes I think of the great Kareem Abdul Jabar as the last rational man standing. He has studied so hard to come to a rational view of the world and society in which he lives; he seems to ask, why won't the rest of us understand what intellect and inquiry says is obvious?

So it is delicious when Kareem turns his very good brain to prayer in our lives: 

... Following the Minnesota shootings last week that left two children dead and 17 people wounded, former White House Press Secretary under Joe Biden, Jen Psaki, commented that sending “thoughts and prayers” wasn’t doing enough to stem the gun violence plaguing America. Said Psaki: “Prayer is not freaking enough. Prayers does not end school shootings. Prayers do not make parents feel safe sending their kids to school. Prayer does not bring these kids back. Enough with the thoughts and prayers.”

Psaki was articulating what most people outside the gun lobbies and the GOP politicians paid off by the gun lobbies have been saying for years. The states with the highest rates of gun deaths per capita are all red states: Mississippi, Louisiana, and Wyoming. While those states spend so much time making sure women have no say over their own bodies, they spend relatively little time or effort curtailing gun violence. They pass strict laws when it comes to abortion, but when it comes to the violent deaths in their states, they rely on prayer. And the bodies keep piling up.

White House Communications Secretary Steven Cheung sounded very un-Christian when he posted about Psaki: “You are a disgusting human being. I hope you circle back with an apology.” Does this seem like a man who prays at all (except for the swift and painful deaths of his political enemies)? After Trump declared Washington, D.C. to be crime-ridden, why didn’t he and his administration, instead of sending in armed National Guard soldiers, form a prayer circle to pray away the crime?

Because Cheung and Leavitt are in the business of rabid deflecting, they hope to turn Psaki’s reasonable comment into some anti-religious screed. What they fail to acknowledge about people of faith is that they can both pray and take actions to curtail the violence. 

They fail to understand that people may be praying not just for divine intervention, but also for the strength and wisdom to address the problem right here, right now. 

This country was built by many deeply religious people, but they didn’t wait around for their god to build a railroad or deliver cures for diseases: they got off their knees and did the difficult work themselves. Their devotion inspired their deeds.

Psaki did not fault people who pray; she just pointed out that prayer in itself will not solve this problem. 

Prayer helps the devout to connect with their core values and to manifest those values in their communities. To suggest otherwise—as Leavitt and Cheung do—insults the intelligence of all people of faith.  

I can go with that. 

Yes on 50: coming soon to whatever media you consume

Here's what is ahead of us this fall:

Yes, we have to do this -- we have to create more potentially Democratic Congressional seats in California to counter the House seats Republicans are carving out in Texas. In this episode of "they started it," California can't opt out. And won't.

For anyone who has had a hard time finding a place in the mushrooming resistance to Trump/MAGA, here's another all too familiar opportunity to make a difference. Spread the word.

White normalcy in Trump's America

Data journalist and sharp observer Philip Bump took a buy-out from the shrinking, Bezos-trashed Washington Post -- and did the smart thing: he took his family on a road trip in Canada. He wondered if the experience of coming home might be a hassle. Donald Trump's border cops are enjoying a new freedom to lord it over us all; would they come after him?

I was curious what would happen when we tried to reenter the country. I am not an important person, but I am someone who has been at odds with the administration and the Department of Homeland Security particularly. Depending on the extent of the government’s pettiness, some difficulty or delays didn’t seem impossible.

Here, too, I imagined a much worse scenario than would manifest. We pulled up to a checkpoint on a rural road south of Montreal and had a pleasant conversation with the agent in the booth. ... The agent welcomed us back to the U.S. and sent us on our way.

I can identify with that anxiety as I am sure quite a few Americans can. It's not new to many people of color; most of us who are white have never felt it. (Though I did sometimes, when on George W. Bush's no fly list.)

But Bump's reflections really encapsulate the anomalous position that comfortable white Americans can find ourselves in these days -- at least those of us not living in cities where Trump has brought in "his" troops.

Is normalcy the norm or the exception? Are exceptional events exceptions or the emerging norm? Are my dreams and fears a reflection of my own derangements or of rational consideration of what’s happening?

Or are they just a function of me? We can draw a clear line between what’s happening to me and people like me — primarily meaning White people — and what’s happening to others. ...

My sons have a Mexican great-grandparent and a Native American great-grandparent; if they and I looked more like my wife’s grandmother would our return to the U.S. have been different? It seems clear that our day to day lives would be.

It seems almost certain that this era will substantially shift America’s measurement of its population. 

When the government that’s hyperactively rounding up Hispanic people in particular knocks on your door and asks someone their race, there will be a natural tendency for more people to self-identify as White. 

America had gotten better about recognizing the malleability of these designators. The second Trump era will probably reverse that trend dramatically.

For other Americans, normalcy will remain the norm, helping them maintain sense of distance from what’s happening everywhere else. .... Other people will be separated from their kids by people not wearing any badges at all. 

America is both of those things now, a place where the vacation is ongoing and a place where it has suddenly ended. 

If Trump succeeds in crashing the economy through erratic and crackpot gyrations, more of us will notice that. 

Bump concludes that more regular citizens who can pass as White will see advantage in doing so. (Black people don't get to play, as usual; I bet Trump still thinks DC is Chocolate City, though that is no longer demographically true.) 

But there's another vision of what it means to be an American -- the one about the aspiration for liberty and justice for all -- and that is what we must strive for, if we're to come out of this terrible time.

San Francisco Labor Day 2025

The San Francisco Labor Council, which organized the holiday event, made the choice to gather in a real working class neighborhood (the Mission at 16th Street), offer a short march route to Dolores Park, and enjoy the fortunately sunny day. 

The result left an impression of slightly chaotic, but determined and happy, crowds celebrating each other and denouncing everything the Trump regime stands for.

This was a very urban little march of several thousand determined people, in a fine coalition style.

 

Not for this year, the distinct contingents from particular locals or even the dockworker marching band.

Instead, we're in this together. Close together.

We know what matters ...

...and what's true.

We know who we blame.

We even, broadly, know what we want ...

The San Francisco Chronicle published a short report which caught the flavor of the event:

Bayview resident Diana Oertel said she is not typically active on labor issues, but “it was time to get out again.” She said she didn’t know whether the demonstrations against the Trump administration were having much of an impact.

“You’d have to be cruising at 20,000 feet to know that,” she said. “All we can do is keep chipping away. We don’t work for the president. He works for us.”