I join in recognizing
the passing of Gene Sharp, a
Boston-based political science professor specializing in nonviolent resistance
who created a veritable bible for democracy activists around the world,
including today in Cuba, who have told me of how they managed to acquire his
works in secret and in translation. Drawing on Thoreau and Gandhi, Sharp's book,
From Dictatorship to Democracy, has
guided most nonviolent resistance movements of the last three decades. And his writings and
legacy live on.
Deciding
which side is responsible for the recent government shutdown (or perhaps the
next one) probably depends on your party affiliation. As for Donald Trump’s
role last time, it seemed mostly to consist of posing with his phone in the
oval office, wearing one of his signature hats, as if he were actually negotiating
something and proposing a way out of the impasse. In fact, he was complaining
that he wasn’t able to go to Mar-a-Lago on the weekend. Despite touting himself
as a shrewd negotiator, he apparently doesn’t actually negotiate anything, just
waits for a solution to be formulated by someone else, then decides to approve
or reject it according to the advice of the person standing nearest him. He was
about to make a bipartisan deal when Republican hardliners intervened to divert
him. Is this how the great deal-maker operates? He seems completely clueless. On
the other hand, he generates a degree of anticipation and excitement, as no one
really knows what he will do next—maybe not even Trump himself.
Trump
complains that the press is against him, “fake news.” Verbatim press reports on
his pronouncements and decisions do cause negative reactions among a large
number of readers and voters, but not because the press is against him, but
because of what he actually says and does, because he lies, double-crosses, and
supports harmful and even cruel policies and says really dumb things. His own
words are heard and even recorded but he rejects even verbatim quotes. He hints
that even his voice was faked. That’s different from most attacks on Obama by
Trump and his followers, not because of Obama’s policies or decisions or manner
of speaking, but because of his African ancestry and supposed African birth.
The two sorts of attacks are not equivalent.
GW
Bush and Dick Cheney led our country and the world into an unnecessary war
whose repercussions are being felt today. But Trump and his followers in the
Republican Congress and among a minority of the electorate supporting his
nuclear threats are like an apocalyptic doomsday cult taking us all down with
them.
For
me, the King holiday brought back many memories. Here are a couple of excerpts
from my Confessions book:
My late former husband
and I were also among the immense crowd listening to Martin Luther King’s “I
have a dream” speech in 1963.
I participated in the
commemoration at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington of Martin Luther King’s “I
Have A Dream” speech, which I had attended 50 years earlier with my
then-husband, not suspecting at the time that it would be become such an iconic
event. The anniversary contrasted with the original in several respects: a much
smaller crowd, a drizzly overcast day rather than bright sunshine, much greater
security despite the National Guard standing by 50 years ago, and a better
sound system this time. The chiming of bells at 3 pm gave me and other veterans
of the first march a nostalgic thrill. A woman near me fainted and was taken
away by paramedics, missing President Obama’s speech, which came through much
clearer than King’s had so many years earlier. Certainly, measurable progress
has been made over the last half century, though as Obama said, much still
remains to be done to increase racial and economic equality and opportunity in
our nation. It was a memorable and hopeful day.
Yes,
that was a memorable and hopeful day,
but here we are, five years later, suffering the racist backlash to King and
Obama at the hands of a minority of bigots led by the foul-mouthed bigot-in-chief,
who apparently said something very disparaging about certain countries. Abolishing
the Electoral College, which has
given us this travesty of a president, should be a priority. I’ve already
written at length about probabilities, so, yes, some immigrants, legal or not,
may have killed someone accidently or on purpose, though not nearly as often as
native-born citizens do. It’s quite stretch to blame the whole Democratic
electorate for the acts of those few, as Trump has done. Conversely, many more
immigrants and their families (thanks to “chain migration”) have saved lives
and provided needed services. Immigrants make our life interesting and bring
new ideas and perspectives. Could Trump ever be man enough to say, “Sorry, I
misspoke regarding immigrants; actually, I was wrong”? Even a guy age 71 can reform if he tries. In doing so, he
might find himself becoming more popular than if he didn’t insist on sticking
only with his base. (However, it does seem that a majority of Republican voters—although
a minority of all voters--still
support Trump.) I’m just so tired of living in Trump’s country!
Until
the 20th century, immigrants didn’t even need permission to come to the US; they just came. These days, with
easier travel and communication, some restrictions are in order, but
immigration laws are not some sort of eternal and sacred rules, rather are
changeable according to the will of the electorate, the majority of whom seem
to prefer more flexibility, not more restrictions. As I have argued in my
books, the US population is getting older and not replacing itself, so we will
be in trouble without new families (i.e. chain migration) coming into the
country.
An
immigrant-run D.C. cafe offered free
coffee to Haitians, Salvadorans, and Africans a day after President Trump
wondered why the United States must accept immigrants from “shithole
countries.” Also welcome to a free cup of joe: Norwegians, for whom the president expressed an affinity.
“Immigrants are coming here and adding to the diversity that makes America what
it is,” said Gjergj Dollani, a
40-year-old Albanian immigrant and
owner of Cafe Chocolat, which opened
four months ago on the 1400 block of H Street NW. “I believe in America,”
Dollani said. He came to the United States in 1994 as part of the green-card lottery program when Albania
was struggling after the collapse of the Soviet Union. (I’ve already mentioned
on this blog that three green-card lottery winners from Tunisia, Argentina, and
Japan, respectively, found they had all won the lottery while staying temporarily
at my house together years ago. an exceptional coincidence or stroke of luck.)
Reportedly,
more Americans moved to Norway than
Norwegians to the US in 2017, not very surprising, so Trump’s stated desire
for more Norwegian immigrants is simply not happening. Norwegians interviewed
on the street have said they would not go to the US as long as he was
president. The number of foreign visitors to the US is sharply down since Trump
took office. They don’t feel welcome.
I’ve
gotten recent phone calls from Africans
who have stayed at my home in the past, asking about Trump’s statement about
their countries. I didn’t vote for the guy, I’ve assured them.
Namibia has been cashing in on Trump’s
mispronunciation of their name as “Nambia” http://peacecorpsworldwide.org/watch-namibias-tourism-industry-cash-in-on-trumps-diplomatic-blunders-namibia/
The Peace Corps Association issued a
statement on Trump’s remarks that included this: we are obliged to take exception to the disparaging remarks apparently
made in reference to the countries – and therein the citizens – which our Peace
Corps community has embraced and adopted as our second homes.
More at: http://peacecorpsworldwide.org/npca-responds-to-trumps-reported-remarks/
More at: http://peacecorpsworldwide.org/npca-responds-to-trumps-reported-remarks/
On the subject of Peace Corps. former volunteer and NASA
astronaut Joe Acaba has linked
directly with Peace Corps from the International Space Station to answer
questions gathered from around the world about STEM and life in space.
Former Peace Corps volunteer (in the
Dominican Republic) Joseph Kennedy, congressman from Massachusetts, gave the
Democratic rebuttal to Trump’s State of the Union address.
The White
House doctor evidently wants to keep his job, so he must have given Trump
the very simplest standardized 10-minute cognitive test, one he was sure to
pass, perhaps such as (just speculating here) what’s your name, your age, your
address, the day of the week, and who is the president of the United States? How
could the doctor have found Trump to be mentally fit when he has repeatedly
shown by his own remarks and tweets that is not
the case, test or no test? Now the test is available on line; one question asks
for identification of images of animals: lion, rhino and camel. Nothing on the
test measures mental illness or decline.
In his State
of the Union address, Trump stuck to the teleprompter, reading out the
words slowly and deliberately and clapping for himself. For purposes of Trump’s
audience, the phrase “We are all dreamers,” was one of speechwriter Stephen
Miller’s more clever creations. Tickets to the event showed a typo, “Uniom,”
and Trump used the occasion to fundraise for himself , which was probably
illegal, but who’s keeping track anymore? Trump has been relatively calm lately, no
crazy tweets or outbursts, maybe taking tranquilizers or pysch meds?
Kim Jong Un’s outreach to South
Korea on the
Olympics indicates that he is shrewder than Trump in terms of international
affairs.
My daughter and friends in Honolulu were subjected to a temporary scare
with the false missile warning; of course, “crying wolf” is dangerous for future
responses to actual attacks. Both the errant employee and the lack of further
safeguards are to blame. Certainly there must be backup for Donald Trump if he
presses the “big” nuclear button he says is on his desk.
So sad
about another school shooting in Kentucky,
reportedly the 11th multiple shooting this year, not all fatal, but a
copy-cat phenomenon made easy by the widespread proliferation of personal
weapons permitted under the guise of the “right to bear arms” as never
envisioned by the Founding Fathers. (Later, there were multiple casualties at
shooting at a carwash—it’s hard to keep up.) The murderous Kentucky student, at
an age when peer slights loom large and impulse-control is lacking, no doubt
had access to his father’s weapons. Looking at probabilities, a school shooter,
like most murderers, is likely to be male and, of course, young. And while
immigrants, including the undocumented, have a lower murder rate than American
citizens, it’s quite likely that Muslims do make up a disproportionate share of
the murders, terrorist attacks, or attempts thereof committed by the
foreign-born. Probabilities are important, but, of course, if you happen to be
a victim, your odds have turned out to be 100%.
I
mentioned last time that South Sudanese are,
as a whole, the darkest-complexioned people I’ve ever encountered on my many travels
around the globe, most deserving of the adjective “black.” In our color and
race-conscious political environment I hesitate to even mention skin color,
such a superficial, skin-deep, attribute. However, color consciousness and
ethnicity are being strongly emphasized by Trump and his followers, so it’s a hard
topic to avoid. Trump’s ignorant remarks often indicate that he thinks all
African Americans and all Latinos necessarily know each other in this vast
country. The current sensitivity about skin color has spilled over to members
of my own family who describe themselves as “black,” proudly identifying with a
socially defined ethnicity, but who are of mixed-race heritage and not particularly dark-skinned, such as my biracial granddaughter shown with me here.
I still mourn the civil war continuing in South Sudan, where tribal loyalties have
proven much more important than skin color.
A TED Talk economist, whose name now escapes me, contends
that providing everyone in the USA with a basic
guaranteed minimum income, no strings attached, would provide economic
benefits to the entire nation at a fraction of the cost of the current defense
budget. Such an experiment was successfully tried in Manitoba, a western Canadian province, but was stopped by political
and economic conservatives, while proving beneficial while it lasted. Some
beneficiaries took on jobs, others did not or could not. The money circulated
back into the economy. Now more populous Ontario
is considering a similar guaranteed income. If actually attempted here,
Trump’s base would be among the winners. As low-skilled jobs disappear and
automation flourishes, why not share the wealth of the new economy while
providing those with few marketable skills with basic buying power? Technology
and machines are replacing many jobs in a new industrial evolution. It was an
axiom of occupational therapy, when I worked at the OT association, that
everyone seeks “meaningful activity,” meaningful as subjectively defied by each
individual. Some recipients of a guaranteed income could take up artistic,
educational, or volunteer pursuits, while others might be fortunate enough to
land a paying job providing them with additional income and also offering a societal
contribution. It does seem that the narrow pursuit of money— beyond even what
any individual or family can spend—is starting to fall out of favor as a
personal goal, though some Republican lawmakers and even some evangelical
religious leaders seem to equate economic wealth with virtue and happiness. And
while I agree with occupational therapy’s advocacy of “purposeful activity,”
that activity has more meaning if selected by the individual rather than
mandated by government.
Studies
have also apparently shown that low income people are proportionately more
generous and cooperative than richer folks, also that giving to others enhances
the giver’s satisfaction, something Donald Trump and family might consider.
Many
less financially endowed people have been shown to not only be more honest than
Trump, but more compassionate, personable, and generous. It’s not enough to distance ourselves from
Trump because we didn’t vote for him; it’s high time to get him out of office.
Enduring three more years is just unbearable.
On the other hand, Pence is no great bargain either and might actually
accomplish more of the unhelpful Republican agenda.
Still, Trump's hard core-supporters remain faithful no matter what
he says or does--it's amazing. Nothing shakes them. I think he once said that
he could kill someone on Fifth Ave. and people would still vote for him. It's
hard to understand, as he doesn't have a very likable personality. Some folks may
simply identify with his apparent license to do whatever he wants, however
goofy, insulting, harmful, or enriching of his personal fortunes, and to spend
public money to play golf or visit Florida on a whim.
Thanks to Trump, tourism from abroad is down and our country is no
longer an example and a beacon for others as a land of hope and opportunity and
equality.
In Honduras, Juan Orlando
Hernandez was sworn in on Jan. 27 in Tegucigalpa for his disputed second
term. He apparently has had some success in reducing the Honduran murder rate,
though with a very heavy hand. I've only heard him speak on TV, where he didn't
impress me with his histrionics. On the other hand, his main opponent Nasralla,
a TV personality who has bragged about his sexual exploits and who is Zelaya's
candidate (I'm no great fan of Zelaya), is not good news either. My Honduran
friends say they either skipped voting altogether or voted for a minor party
candidate not actually expected to win. However, with Trump as our president
here, we are in no position to criticize another country's president.
My usual Feb. plans to go to Honduras were delayed because of the post-election
unrest and violence there, but now I am leaving
and won’t be stopping in Miami on my return because of needing to attend an
Amnesty Int’l conference in the DC area near the end of Feb. There is still a
US travel advisory to Honduras. Nonetheless, the medical brigades are still going
forward because of the difficulty of changing schedules now. Luis Knight, one
of my contacts in La Esperanza, is telling me that there are demonstrations at
certain entrances to the city and also at those of neighboring towns and that
the daughter of Bertha Caceres, the murdered dam opponent, has been elected to
the legislature by the Libre Party, now contesting the presidential outcome,
and she has led demonstrations in town. Here is his actual
message: En la zona de La Esperanza,
ponen tomas de carretera en la entrada a la ciudad…también en Jesus de Otoro,
sabe que la hija de Bertha Caceres salio como diputada por Libre, entonces hay
algunas manifestaciones encabezadas por ella en el sector de La Esperanza.
Before leaving for
Honduras, I asked for wheelchair donations, as I usually take at least one wheelchair
to leave there and have had good luck with donated wheelchairs in the past. This
time, I got four, but discovered they all lack one or more footrests, which are
important. I thought I could just get replacement footrests on line, but there
is a dizzying array footrests and not enough time for trial and error, so I
decided to try to ditch the unwanted wheelchairs at Salvation Army or elsewhere
when I get back and just ordered a brand new wheelchair on line. If that works
out, I won’t ask again for wheelchair donations as it’s harder to get rid of
unwanted wheelchairs than to get them in the first place.
Above is the box for delivery of the new wheelchair.
This will be my last
blog posting before my departure.
UN Calls on All Parties in Honduras
to Refrain from Violence
VOA News, January
21, 2018
https://www.voanews.com/a/un-calls-on-all-parties-in-honduras-to-refrain-from-violence/4217284.html
Had an
interpretation recently with a legal firm taking on the pro bono case of an
unaccompanied Central American minor. Based on my recent asylum cases, especially
of minors, it seems that some gang killings in Central America are not
specifically targeting anyone in particular, rather that new gang members must
kill random individuals as part of their initiation into the group.
With Bitcoin’s ups and downs, it must be remembered that any
currency is only as valuable as the value that people assign to it. Is a piece
of paper called a $100 bill valuable and useful in itself?
I
had been unaware that Amazon billionaire
Jeff Bezos’ father came to our country alone as teenager from Cuba. (By the way, that last name as pronounced
in Latin American Spanish, sounds the same as the word for “kisses.”) Bezos and his wife revealed that bit
of family history in setting up a scholarship
fund for Dreamers. Bezos provides a stark contrast with greedy billionaire
Donald Trump, who not only hoards his money but deliberately harms and
disparages those less economically fortunate than himself.
PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE ATTACKED IN PRISON
On 19 December 2017,
after being transferred from the Provisional Prison of Holguín to Cuba SI
prison, three other prisoners attacked Eduardo Cardet, according to his wife.
He is a prisoner of conscience who must be released immediately and
unconditionally.
|
HuffPost
shutters unpaid contributor platform - POLITICO
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/18/huffpost-no-unpaid-contributors-345535
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/18/huffpost-no-unpaid-contributors-345535
Yes, they have notified us authors, but I looked up some of my
articles and they still come up. The on-line articles that we published,
although we were not staff or paid, did give us a forum and every sentence
was reviewed meticulously by staff. Some articles took longer to review
than others. I had to provide backup citations for whatever I said, though
these were not included in the final article--they were just for Huffington
Post to make sure that I wasn't saying something totally bogus. I
suppose some of those reviewers are among those now being laid off. Really,
since Trump became president, I haven't had the emotional energy to write any
more for HP. My Cuba article thrust was aimed mainly at
Democrats, the typical readers of HP, but now that Republicans
are in charge, I don't want to give them any more ammunition about Cuba or
anything else. So it's not a great loss at this juncture for me personally.
However, I do think there was value in having a forum where non-staff writers could
express themselves and find an audience, though maybe now with podcasts,
Facebook, blogs, etc. there are other avenues. The newly configured HuffPost is now reverting to articles
written by staff or invited well-known authors, becoming like every other
on-line or printed publication and losing the fresh ideas that its more open forum
fostered.
“Stamp Out Money in
Politics” is the
name of a website soliciting money! It’s an irony that only money seems to work
in politics, money for candidates, money for advertising, money for mail and
phone solicitations, money for people getting out the vote.
Sorry
fellow Democrats, but I don’t find the 20-week
abortion ban to be too oppressive of women. Pretty obviously, unless a
woman just wasn’t paying attention, her pregnancy should not have gotten to 20
weeks without her awareness and most medical complications for her or the
unborn would probably be fully evident by then. She should have had ample time
to exercise her “right to choose.” And probably a fetus can feel pain after
that stage. Most medical facilities would not enter lightly into an abortion then
anyway and abortion requests must be few at 20 weeks, so maybe the ban is
mostly symbolic. But given that viability has now been reduced to close to 20
weeks, trying to save a fetal/newborn life then rather than obliterate it
doesn’t seem so unreasonable. It would
be good to see examples of cases where abortion might be called for after that
point. (And while as both a birth and adoptive mother I may be sympathetic to
Republican arguments on the 20-week abortion ban, that issue alone is not going
to catapult me into the Republican column.)
There
is now a pro-life feminist movement.
Am I dreaming, but might it be possible to combine both morning-after pills and
early abortions with ongoing help for unexpectedly pregnant women in a single
facility, a real crisis-pregnancy
center? Isn’t that already being done in some hospitals and clinics? It doesn’t
seem necessary to have free-standing abortion providers and also separate
crisis pregnancy centers where never the twain shall meet. What about combined crisis
pregnancy centers where abortion in the first trimester could be an option along
with offers of assistance to carry a pregnancy to term? Then, distressed unexpectedly
pregnant women really would have a choice.
And “pro-life” needs to go beyond being “pro-birth,” because being born is only
the beginning. I’m expressing myself here as both a birth and an adoptive
mother. And, for better or worse, being a mother doesn’t abruptly end when they
reach age 21. I’m a witness to that.
Someone
unexpectedly pregnant may not want to have a “baby” in the abstract, but if
they considered the individual characteristics of that particular baby, they
would probably feel differently. On the other hand, it’s more than just a
matter of producing a baby, since,
assuming a normal lifespan (with “normal” expanding every year), it requires
producing a person, a fully developed human
being. Some babies will turn out to
be great people and others less so ad it takes come parental effort and
commitment to help grow up. A baby might
grow up to be Winston Churchill, Mother Teresa, or even Barack Obama, whose
teenage unmarried mother must have been aghast to find herself unexpectedly pregnant.
And, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Osama Bin Laden, and Donald Trump were all probably
cuddly babies once upon a time.
The
moral dilemma becomes more complicated with the invention of artificial wombs,
now being tried successfully with animals, and also by surrogacy, which separates
genetic parents from “gestational” mothers. Overpopulation is also a concern,
so baby production needs some curbs. Fortunately, most couples don’t have the
wherewithal that has led Kim and Kayne West to produce two children the
traditional way, then one by surrogate, now considering doing the same once
again.
