A Journalist and an Historian

Well, he’s an interesting guy, with an interesting set of beliefs. And he’s much in the news, now, since he has taken Edward Snowden’s revelations public through The Guardian and The Washington Post.

But the hour-long interview that I just watched was filmed two years ago, when Glenn Greenwald was relatively unknown, and had just published his book, With Liberty and Justice for Some. The central premise of the book? That our political institutions have become so corrupted that we now have a two-tiered system of justice—one for the rich and powerful, the other for the rest of us.

A defining moment for Greenwald was Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon. From then on, the idea that we had to “look forward, move on, achieve closure” meant that every president since then joins the old boys network. A classic case, according to Greenwald, was how even in the interregnum of winning the election and the inauguration, Obama was slithering out of persecution of the Bush administration for war crimes, for lying to the American people and to Congress, for launching an aggressive war. Which, by the way, was the key crime of Adolf Hitler that the United States and the world charged in the Nuremberg Trials after World War II.

And it’s a clear path—the lack of prosecution of Richard Nixon lead to the lack of persecution for Irangate and high officials in the Reagan administration, the invasion of Iraq in Desert Storm, the torture and abuses of human rights in the Bush years. And as Greenwald points out, anybody who suggests that Bush be held to justice has instantly self-marginalized himself.

What’s particularly curious is—where’s the outrage? We are, after all, living in the most connected era in history. I can now tell you that in Syria, the foreign minister has appeared to agree to demands to allow international inspection or control. A hundred and fifty years ago, people were still fighting in wars after the truce had been declared.

By now, everyone can see the problem: we have an oligarchy. Members of Congress spend half of their time—minimally—struggling to get elected. And that money doesn’t come from you and me. Unless, of course, your last name is Rockefeller….

The other curious thing is how easy it should be, hypothetically, to solve the whole thing. Look, other governments have found out or figured out ways to take the money out of politics. Why can’t we?

We could start with simply funding public elections. Punto—oh, and can we put an end to television advertising? Debates, yes—but a president or senator isn’t (or shouldn’t be) a product. Though they have become so….

The next thing to do would be to throw out all the fancy voting apparatus and go back to the paper ballot and the cardboard box. The voting machine industry, by the way, is highly technical, extremely expensive, and is dominated by about three companies, all headed by rabid Republicans.

We also are going to have to increase minimum wage. Oh, and speaking of which—and speaking also of the corrosive effect of money on public policy—here’s Bill Moyers on the other NRA.

In June, the National Restaurant Association boasted that its lobbyists had stopped minimum wage increases in 27 out of 29 states in 2013. In Connecticut, which increased its state minimum wage, a raise in the base pay for tipped workers such as waitresses and bartenders vanished in the final bill. A similar scenario unfolded in New York State: It increased its minimum wage, but the NRA’s last-minute lobbying derailed raising the pre-tip wage at restaurants and bars. The deals came despite polls showing 80 percent support for raising the minimum wage.     

Rounding back to Greenwald, he argues that we have a system in which the powerful get away—figuratively and even occasionally literally—with murder, whereas the poor are more easily incarcerated than ever.

OK—jailing is one thing we do to the poor. The other thing we do—as I learned in class today—is to use them as cannon fodder. That’s what my student taught me, as she showed me a photo on her iPhone of her nephew, who had just enlisted in the army.

Well, he thought it was all he could do. He had just turned 18, he had bad grades and couldn’t go to the university, and jobs? Are you kidding?

I tried to be hopeful; my student was near tears. But the reality is that if her nephew comes back, his life may be just as hellish as it was in Iraq. It may, in fact, become something like Iraq 2.0, with the terrors being internal and systemic, as opposed to external and random.

Oh, and the people who wrecked the system, so that there are no jobs, and kids have to off to war? The criminals in the thousand-dollar suits? They’re free, and riding a soaring stock market right now….

Greenwald also makes the point that we have blended the lines between the public and private sectors. And nowhere is this more true than in “national security.” Who would have imagined a world in which we have out-sourced granting security access? It’s madness.

And Greenwald’s observation that journalists have changed is interesting—instead of the hard-bitten, cynical, go-after-the-bastards-and-damn-the-costs guys of the past, we now have people who are employed by corporations, and who know how the corporation works. Which—news flash, here—is by smiling, going along with the herd, ducking your head and not rocking boats.

Well, I came upon Greenwald by listening to “Conversations with History,” a great, hour-long program coming out of UCLA. Yesterday, I watched William Cronon, the president of the American Historical Association and a professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Today was Greenwald.

And both men were inspiring. Oddly, both men spoke briefly of the necessity of hope. Given that Cronon is a specialist in Environmental History, and Greenwald in First Amendment and Civil Rights, one wonders…

Which man has the most reason to be hopeful?

Or the most need?

Et in terra pax redux

I might be for it if I thought we knew what we were doing.

The videos that came out of Syria following the chemical attack are horrifying, and yes—I think it’s more likely than not that it was the Syrian army, and not the rebels, who launched the attack. Why? Well, all three strikes were in rebel strongholds. As well, it’s apparently not so easy to carry out a chemical attack—either to make the agents or fire them.

And the Syrian government has, as Kerry pointed out, been reluctant to let the areas affected be inspected, which you would assume it would if they had nothing to hide.

So why am I not all for bombing the hell out Syria?

Well, apparently Syria has the third largest amount of chemical weapons in the world. And where is all that stuff? And even if we knew two weeks ago exactly where everything was, what happens if somebody moved it? And then we bombed it?

That said—what are we going to do? Fire a few missiles at army installations? Bomb the presidential palace? Take out infrastructure?

And when is enough enough? What’s our exit strategy—or are we going to improvise again, as we did / are doing in Afghanistan and Iraq?

And if we do a regime change—what will replace it? One commentator from an Al Jazeera program pointed out that none of the rebel groups are particularly friendly to the West—so is there any reason to get involved?

We may think that we can’t be more despised in the region than we already are, but guess what? We can, and will be. Go on YouTube and enter “Syria chemical attacks” and what you’ll see is chilling. About half are legitimate news clips—the other half (and by no means the least watched) are home-made affairs with titles like “Leaked Documents—U.S. Framed Syria in Chemical Weapons Attack.”

Then there’s the interesting question—over 100,000 people have been killed, and last week’s atrocity? The highest estimate I read was over 3,000. Yes, it is heinous for a government to gas its people. But the West has sat around and watched Syrians kill each other for two long years, now. If we had a moral obligation to act, shouldn’t we have done so a long time ago?

It’s true that using chemical weapons is a particularly barbaric way of killing—it’s indiscriminate, for one thing, which is why so many women and children were victims. But the same might be true with bombs—and especially in civilian areas.

And it might be the case that the world needs to do something—just as we needed to do something in Kosovo. What saddens me is that a response may be justified, but the American people, to say nothing of the rest of the world, have seen enough posturing about chemical weapons—remember that vial of white powder (supposedly anthrax) in Colin Power’s hands? Now, when there really is a chemical attack, the world is too suspicious, and too weary, to respond.

“Why in the world would anybody bother to fight over that land,” my mother used to wonder, looking at some godforsaken desert on television and comparing it to her lush Wisconsin woods.

Why indeed?

Prostitution Day at the Beach

Well, I could tell you that our loopy Congress (gonna have to rethink those caps) has once again voted against the will of the American people, and decided that it’s perfectly OK for government to spy on us. Or how about Syria—over 100,000k have been killed in the civil war there. Or really to rain on your day, how about the fact that in the same day that we all hung by our screens to see British kid named George Alexander Louis, 440 women died in childbirth across sub-Saharan Africa?

“It’s Prostitution Day,” I told Gustavo, the sexy guy from the café, “you’re not going to the bank…”

Nor were we going to the bank, but rather to the beach, and a very good day it was for it. We snailed along at Mr. Fernández’s glacier-in-reverse pace, caught some rays, and sampled some local color, of which there was a very full palette.

We do some things very well, down here, but going to the beach we do either very badly (seen through gringo eyes) or superbly (don’t have to tell you….).

On this particular beach, there are signs posting the rules of the beach. To a gringo mind, one would get to a place, look for a sign, read it, absorb the rules, and follow them. To us?

What sign?

It’s almost a competition—which group of people can violate the most rules. There were the people picnicking outside of the picnic area (1), grabbing beers (2) out of the cooler (3), as their dog (4) chased after a tossed cigarette butt (5). But they were pikers. Most people were scoring at least eight.

There are no barbecues allowed except in the picnic area—of course everybody has a grill. There is no drinking allowed—hey, wanna beer? There is no music, but of course a guy had a boom box in a little red cart—remember them from childhood?—and was blasting reggaetón to half the beach.

“Free music,” I told Mr. Fernández. You gotta go with the flow….

Mind you, nobody is actually swimming. Most people are bobbing in the water, chugging back the beer or the gasolina—a rum drink that comes in a pouch. Men will have 15 extra pounds per decade over 20; women will have 20. Everybody will be shouting, children will be running between your legs, and the smell of charcoal and grilled food will be intoxicating. And yes, people will bring everything to the beach—chairs, the baby crib, the baby, Mamita, large umbrellas, tents, tables to hold the food.

It’s wonderful. We strolled home, bumping into homeless and now toothless Gale, who told us the horror stories of the community—Puerta de Tierra—just next to ours. We gave her some money, chatted for a bit, and moved on.

And now, do I want to read about Syria, contemplate death rates in the developing world, or allow the United States Congress to dampen my psyche?

Forget it—here’s a little known but wonderful cello sonata, by the curious French composer Charles Valentin Alkan….      

This Just In From Puerto Rico

It’s one of those things about Puerto Rico—while the rest of the world is occupying themselves about other things (Syria, governmental spying, even a royal birth) we are completely obsessed with our own affairs.

I tell you this because the world into which I woke, this morning, was devoted to three issues, which the morning radio repeated endlessly. First, Pablo Casellas is in a coma.

You may remember this guy, who is the son of Salvador Casellas, a federal judge, whom colleagues describe as completely recto or straight. Allegedly, Pablo Casellas returned home on the morning of 14 July 2012 and saw an intruder jumping over a ten-foot wall by the pool. Casellas, who is an expert marksman and has (or had at the time) 33 guns, went back inside, got a gun, and fired several shots. He then discovered his lifeless wife sitting at the poolside; she’d been shot.

What did Poppa do? Well, the judge rushed to the house to be with his son, and to ensure that the investigation is done properly. The press arrived at about the same time and caught the judge scurrying under the yellow “do not cross—police investigation”—tape. Made a great photo—the judicial rear end bumping up against the tape….

But that was only the beginning. There were bloodstains in Pablo Casellas’s car; the grass on the other side of the wall showed no sign of being trampled; the shots in the wall were from a special gun that Casellas reported stolen in a “carjacking” close to the shooting range where Casellas had been practicing. Except that it was closed, that day; it was Fathers’ Day.

Well, it’s taken a year of legal screwing around to get this case to court, and the trial was to have started next Monday, so what does Casellas do?

The family isn’t talking—do they have to? “Sources” are saying that he’s in very, very delicate shape, and that they will start a process akin to dialysis to cleanse his blood. The next 24 to 48 hours are critical….

So where’s Poppa now? Sitting by the bedside, presumably on the taxpayer’s dime. And morning radio is speculating—is it suicide? Did Casellas fils swallow pills? A guy with all those guns has to do the one spectacularly poor way of offing himself?

I know ‘cause I was a nurse. Every time one of our regular patients presented at the ER with an empty bottle of Tylenol in her hands, the ER nurses had instructions: don’t buy in, be utterly matter-of-fact, and tell the patient, “just sit over there, hon—we’ll take you when we can.”

So Casellas is in the anteroom of death, and the island is hanging on its ears. But what else is going on?

Coffee—the price is going up 40%.

Coffee, according to The New Day, is doing about as well as Pablo Casellas, at the moment. Costs of fertilizer, electricity and everything else have gone up. The farmers are being squeezed out of business—which is serious, because we drink 300,000 quintales (no idea what that is, but sounds impressive) of the stuff but only produce 80,000 quintales annually. So we import the majority of our coffee.

You might ask—isn’t there land for coffee in Puerto Rico?

Of course there is—plenty of it, and in fact there is lots of coffee that goes unpicked. So what’s the problem?

Nobody wants to pick it.

Be fair—it’s a pretty rotten job. You’re standing (hopefully—otherwise you’re sliding) on a wet, muddy mountainside with branches slashing your face and insects stinging you and carrying a sack into which you are putting more and more coffee—thus adding more and more weight as you get more and more tired.

Now it begins to rain….

Second scenario—you can go to the Departamento de la Familia and get the Tarjeta de la Familia and that gets you free food, which you can munch on around noon, when you get up.

Well, fortunately the next island over has never dreamed up the idea of the Departamento de la Familia—so guess what? The mountains are filled with Dominicans (from Santo Domingo—not the religious order), according to a student from Jayuya, deep in the center of the island.

OK—Casellas in coma, coffee in crisis…what’s next?

Well, the island has 14 people who are still in shelters—down from the 88 people who were in shelters last week, when a tropical wave dumped 9.15 inches of water on the island. And now the mayor of San Juan wants the governor to declare San Juan a disaster, since the city has 300 cases of damage to examine.

But there’s a problem.

According to The New Day, the entire island is in a permanent state of emergency. Why? Because the planning has been so wretchedly bad that any rain can cause chaos. We have built on flood plains; squatters have built on flood plains; we have given no maintenance to whatever systems we had to drain water.

Nor is it entirely the government’s fault.

“You can’t be serious,” I said to my student, after she had described her flood-plained community’s creative approach to financing redecoration.

Their practice—before the advent of a serious storm—was to throw a few sofas into the Rio Cañas just before the storm. The sofas would block the culvert down by the bridge; the water would rise wonderfully. Soon, it would be swirling deliciously through their house, delightfully whisking away all that stuff the eyes had grown tired of seeing. The press would come, the neighbors would stand woefully in front of their houses, and then FEMA would send the check.

See?

Well, it makes sense down here….