Anchorage NO KINGS - "So many problems, so little cardboard"

 Counting the crowd seemed impossible.  There wasn't a spot for me to get higher so I could see the whole gathering.  The May 1 rally had probably over 3000.  This seemed larger, but I couldn't really count.  There were people up on a parking garage nearby and I considered going over there, but instead stayed wandering through the crowd.  The Anchorage Daily News said "thousands" which isn't wrong.  

The crowd was seriously angry about what's happening to the US, but the mood among all these other people who felt the same was cheerful and friendly.  I didn't see any law enforcement uniforms.  I also didn't see a lot of non-white faces.  There were some, but it was pretty white crowd.  And dogs.  And a number of kids.  

These folks at Vet memorial.  On the right
"so many problems, so little cardboard"

The Vet Memorial is on the park strip, a few blocks from the main rally that was on L Street in front of the building houses the offices of our two US Senators.  

There were lots of people headed to L St. with signs as I biked there.  

Mostly I'll let the pictures do the talking.  

  

This one repeats the 'so little cardboard' sentiment, and how I feel.  The president (and his team) do so many impeachable acts, that they all become a blur.  And then someone says something like, "Well, different people have different numbers."  

Well, yeah, but the damning ones are right on the mark or close to it.  This president's done more things before lunch on any one day, that would have gotten any other president in serious trouble, if not impeached.  

So I like this sign - "Ugh! Where do I  Begin?"

On the back he did begin a list.  

I marked the approximate locations of the Anchorage offices of Alaska's two (GOP) Senators.  

It's Alaska, so we don't reject all kings.

That's a chain saw the guy with the clown nose is carrying

You can get a sense of how big the crowd is by looking at how close I am to that building.  The lots we were on were crammed with people, from here up to right in front of the building.  See the closer picture above with the Senators' offices marked on the picture.  

There's the parking garage where I could have gotten a better crowd size picture.  There were folks up there already.

The window washer was cleaning windows up above us and when I watched him, he was ignoring us and working busily.  

The green sign is the back side of "Ugh!  Where do I Begin?"

There are more photos, but you get the picture.  There were speakers, but unless you were on that block, you really couldn't hear them.  

When the hour or so was up, the crowd marched to the Park Strip and joined the folks at the Juneteenth celebration.  

The Rest Of The May Day Anchorage Protest Photos

I  got help from Apple today to fix my problem with AirDropping the pictures on my phone to my laptop.  We did it through Chat.  They denied being AI and wrote they were in the Philippines.  The fix was to go into my phone settings, down to 'transfer or reset phone' and then 'reset'.  I was nervous that I'd lose a bunch of things, but so far it seems ok.  And when I tried to upload the photos it worked.  

So here are more of the photos from the May 1 protest in Anchorage.  The original post is here.

How Does Trump Screw Us? Let Me Count The Ways

That wasn't the original title, but as I started writing, it just seemed more apt.  

This post is about two videos - one by Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut who lays out the details of the unprecedented level of corruption in the first six weeks of the Trump administration.    (Thus the title of this post.)  

The second is a woman from Oklahoma venting her anger over the botched Signal chat that put her husband (stationed in the Middle East) in potential danger.  

I was struck by the contrast between these two approaches to criticizing the Trump administration - one highly factual and rational, almost like a college lecture.  The other focused, but almost unhinged in the level of anger and invective.  

I'd argue that we should all be at the level of anger and resistance that woman is at.  We shouldn't wait until we are directly impacted.  100,000 people raging like she does would probably pry enough US Senators away from Trump to stop the venal actions that Senator Murphy describes in detail.  

We need the facts and details to understand how we're being screwed to raise our level of anger and resistance.  And we need her passion and fury to get us to stop pretending life will not be completely disrupted if we don't stop this horror right now.  

Murphy Video

There's a lot of content and detail here.  You can skip down to the video, or you can first look at my outline of the ways Murphy lists that Trump is corrupting government and enriching himself and his oligarch supporters - from streamlining the art of the bribe to dismantling agencies that have investigations that hurt Trump supporters.  Here are some of them, to help you keep track.  I've added links if you want to find out more about each.  

1.  Memecoins - He starts out talking about Trump meme coins that can be used to transfer money, unreported, directly into Trump's account.  This is the latest in bribe technology. 

What are Meme Coins?

I had to look up meme coins to try to understand what they are.  Here's a link to investopedia.com and one to wikipedia to help you understand.  The first link even offers ways to invest.  The Wikipedia link is more contextual and historical.  One thing I learned looking this up is that DOGE - the Department Of Government Efficiency - the rogue mob that Elon Musk is leading, is also the name of one of the more popular memecoins, one that Musk promoted.

2. Pays off Oil/Gas Industry's $1 billion bribe.   On day one Trump privileges oil and gas and hurts their competition- wind, solar etc.  This article documents the billion dollar ask, but the actual money count doesn't get that high.  But the benefits were given.  

3.  Jan 25  Fires the watch dogs - all the Inspectors General - the people who investigate corruption

4.  Jan 27 - Fires head of National Labor Relations Board.  This means NLRB cannot investigate cases.  Musk has lots of cases before the NLRB.  And many others around Trump have cases pending.

5.  Jan 30 - awards $800K stock of Trump Media platform  to  cabinet members, which Murphy says is another way for people to move cash to bank accounts of cabinet members in order to get favors.  

6.  Feb 23 - Weaponization of DOJ  - Drops case against Musk SpaceX    Then drops case against a GOP congressman.  Then Operation Whirlwind that targets anyone critical of Musk or DOGE.   DOJ turned into entity that drops cases of Trump loyalists and attacks those who criticize Trump.

7.  Feb 1  - Shut down Consumer Finance Protection Board  which was investigating Musk and Trump backers - consumer protection actions now gone

8.  Feb 4.  Meetings in White House with Business Partners - Saudi Gulf League and PGA - Saudis play torunaments at Trump golf course 

9.  Feb 6 - Pam Bondi - dulls foreign government agent act - No longer registering as foreign government represenatives  = now his friends can lobby government while secretly getting paid by foreign governments.  

10.  Feb 10 - Eric Adams case dropped and publicly announced that gettting rid of the charges against Adams if he pledges loyalty to Trump.Six  people in DOJ refused and resigned and finally the seventh agreed.  

11.  Buying $400 million Tesla’s.  Biden admin was going to buy $483K, Trump bumps it up to $400 million.  This seems to have been scuttled.

This is only a partial list.  The rest are in the video.  

 The Murphy Video

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The second video is just sheer anger at Trump's inept appointees jeopardizing the life of the lady's husband as well as of those of his fellow Middle East stationed military men.  [This is supposed to end after about 4 minutes 30 seconds - I added instructions into the code.  But it didn't work.  I'm not recommending you watch the whole thing.]

The original video I saw, but couldn't find a way to embed, was sharply directed to Sen. Lankford of Oklahoma.  She vows to end his career.  Very powerful messaging.  You can see it at this link to a Bluesky post.

As I said above, we should all be at the level of anger and resistance that woman is at.  We shouldn't wait until we are directly impacted.  Murphy offers us just a few of the reasons we should be angry as hell.   100,000 people raging like the woman in the video does would probably cause enough GOP Senators and Members of Congress away from Trump to stop the horrors that Senator Murphy describes in detail.  

How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)

Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806 – 1861

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of being and ideal grace.

I love thee to the level of every day’s

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for right.

I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

This poem is in the public domain.

Civil Service - Who Are These People ET Are Firing? - Part I

Intro:  Civil Service and Merit System are terms most Americans have heard, but I'd guess that few could tell you, very accurately, what they mean or anything about their history or why they are important bedrocks of American democracy.  

Part I - is a repeat of a post I put up last August 31, 2025.  Part II will be another old post.  It gets into more detail and is based on testimony I gave in a discrimination case years ago.  Although there will be repetition, I'm sure that will be helpful for readers to grasp the concepts. 

This topic is critical to understanding why what is happening right now is both illegal and will lead to serious damage to the U.S. government's ability to efficiently and effectively serve the people of the United States.  

*ET - my conflation of Elon and Trump, though someone else thought it meant Evil Tyrant.  Evil Twins might also work.  Maybe Elon and Trump can journey to Mars and it can then have its original meaning of Extra Terrestrial.  

From the August 31, 2024 post:

From the August 31, 2024 LA Times: [Note the digital and facsimile editions have different titles.]

 

As someone who taught public administration at the graduate level, I'm well aware of the lack of knowledge of what 'the civil service' is.  So let me give you some background.  

Before the civil service was created in local, state, and federal governments, we had what is often called "the spoils system."

Briefly, 'to the victor, go the spoils.'  Winning candidates gave jobs to the campaign supporters.  This was the payoff for working on a campaign.  Qualifications were not nearly as important as loyalty.  This included positions as low as garbage collector and as high as the head of the budget.  

Aside from the incompetence and corruption this led to, it also meant that whenever someone from a different party won, the whole government was thrown out and new people were put in place.  And had to learn from scratch, generally without any help from the fired former workers.

Political machines, like Tammany Hall in New York, would recruit new immigrants coming off the ships to work on their campaigns with the promise of a job if they won.  [US citizenship was not required to vote back then.  That changed later.  The Constitution gave the states the power to run elections and decide qualifications to vote.  The Constitution didn't ban women from voting, the states did.]

At the national level, this came to a head when Andrew Jackson was elected president and invited 'the riffraff' that elected him to the White House in 1830.  But it wasn't until a disgruntled office seeker assassinated President Garfield in 1881 because he didn't get the position he sought, that Congress got serious. 

In 1883 they passed the Pendleton Act that set up a civil service system based on merit.  

Merit, as in the 'merit system' means that positions are filled based on merit, or on one's qualifications for the job, not on who you know.  

Local governments in New York and Boston didn't move to merit systems until the early 20th Century.  

Those merit systems weren't perfect.  The inherent biases of the day meant that women and Blacks weren't qualified except for what Trump would call 'women's jobs' and 'Black jobs.'  

And even today, the top level jobs in most governments are still filled with people who are loyal to the head of the government - whether that's a mayor, governor, or president.   Not only does that include cabinet officials but a top layer of 'exempt' positions.  Exempt meaning they are not covered by the merit system.  They can be hired and fired at will.  Usually the newly elected official picks people based on their loyalty to the policy as well as their professional qualifications to do the job.  But clearly that second part doesn't always happen.  The only check on this, is a required vote of approval by a legislative body - the US or state Senate, a City Council.  But if the newly elected executive  has a majority in the legislative branch too, that approval is often pro forma.

People hired through a merit system process also have job protections.  They cannot be fired except for cause - for violating the law, the policies or procedures, for gross incompetence etc.  Whereas the appointed (exempt) positions don't have such protections.  

After his 2016 election, Trump was frequently frustrated by career civil servants, who didn't jump to follow his often illegal instructions. The media have dubbed these people (who included many appointed positions as well) 'the guardrails' that kept Trump somewhat in line. He wanted the Justice Department to punish people who opposed him.  He did battle with the civil servants in various regulatory agencies who followed the law rather than Trump's illegal bidding.  

So, when we hear that Trump wants to destroy the civil service, as stated in the LA Times headline above, this is what we're talking about.  

He doesn't want a system that hires qualified people who cannot be fired except for cause.  (Again, for cause, means they have to do something that violates the laws, the rules, or is grossly incompetent or corrupt.)  He wants government workers that do his bidding without any resistance, without them telling him 'it's against the law.'

He wants to fire all those people who were hired based on merit (their qualifications to perform the job).  These include Democrats, Republicans, and non-partisan employees.  He wants to replace them with people whose main qualification is undying loyalty to Trump.  

That's pretty much all I want to say.

One of the very best books on this subject is Robert Caro's The Power Broker.  It's a biography of Robert Moses who played a major role in getting a merit system in place in New York.  It's a massive [1168 pages] book.  But it is also riveting as it goes into detail on how the young, idealist Moses evolved into the powerful and corrupt power broker of New York. And in doing so tells the story of the civil service. Not only did the book win the Pulitzer Prize, it was also selected on most lists of the 100 best non-fiction books of the 20th Century. I challenge you to read the first hundred pages and not want to keep turning the pages.

Introduction to Robert Caro's The Power Broker 

Part II is here.

Whoops, Forgot the Title: Tech Bro Plans For The Future

[Overview:  The key here is the video.  Find 30 minutes to watch/listen.  It puts lots of important things into place.  The rest of the post includes thoughts I had about the video and the people described in it.  Something about the narrator of the video.  But the video is the important thing.  It's not just someone's opinion - it's a well documented overview of the role of the billionaire tech bros in the Trump election and administration

This video came across my screen this morning.  It offers much more depth to the previous post  that said a coup was happening.  While we all knew that the tech guys were involved - Musk, of course, and that Peter Thiel bought Vance's election to the Senate and the vice presidential nomination, etc. - my impression had been that Project 2025 had been something from the Heritage Foundation - (from the ACLU):

"Project 2025 is a federal policy agenda and blueprint for a radical restructuring of the executive branch authored and published by former Trump administration officials in partnership with The Heritage Foundation, a longstanding conservative think tank that opposes abortion and reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, immigrants’ rights, and racial equity."

The Heritage Foundation has been around a long time and among other things, created a whole conservative law society that groomed right wing attorneys with their ideology and got them onto the Supreme Court.  

But this video outlines a different set of influences for Project 2025 - libertarian leaning, billionaire tech bros.  And as we watch live - but not like we watched January 6 live - Elon Musk sucking up government data, this video makes much more sense of what's happening and why.   

   

Here's an outline of the video from the YouTube channel:

"chapters

00:00-01:00 Introduction

01:01-04:25 The Dark Agenda of Tech VCs

04:26-07:10 Networks and Patchworks: Reinventing the State

07:11- 09:44 Praxis and Pronomos

09:45 –12:37 Making it a Reality 

12:38 –18:03 Vance, Thiel, and Yarvin

18:04 –19:28 Tech and Project 2025

19:29-20:00 Butterfly Revolution Step 1: Campaign on Autocracy

20:01-21:42 Butterfly Revolution Step 2: Purge the Bureaucracy 

21:43-23:00 Butterfly Revolution Step 3: Ignore the Courts

23:01-23:50 Butterfly Revolution Step 4: Co-Opt the Congress

23:51-25:06 Butterfly Revolution Step 5: Centralise Police and Powers

25:07-27:54 Butterfly Revolution Step 6: Shut Down Elite Media and Academic Institutions

27:55-28:35 Butterfly Revolution Step 7: Turn Out the People

28:36-29:40 Conclusion"

While this may make things seem worse, I'd argue that this guys had the right set of skills to get rich in the tech age in the US, but their smarts are limited.  As Musk has shown with Twitter, there are important interpersonal skills he's lacking.  When I read Atlas Shrugged in my late teens, it only took me about 150 pages to realize how repulsive the main characters were.  But these guys think they know much more than they do, and want to create a libertarian world where they are free from government interference, where they are the government (and thus free to interfere with others.)

Now, I can understand how a bunch of rich techies with no serious background in the history of government, liberty, democracy, etc. can feel oppressed by government that seems to (and in many cases probably is) be a bit behind the changing technologies, but is trying to apply regulations to the industry and, even worse, tax their earnings.  But that's only because they think their tech ability and the fact they got rich makes them smarter than everyone else.  Sort of like doctors who think they have expertise in every other field beyond medicine.  

So while I expect they're going to do a lot of damage to democracy, the world economy, and the planet* (by not fighting climate change particularly), I also think they're going to have a lot of failures and a lot of disagreements with each other and with the older legal far right architects of the US move to fascism.  

But understanding what's happening is the first step to effective corrective steps.  

* "doing damage to . . .the planet" - I'd like to clarify that 'damage to the planet' is a human-centric idea.  The planet, it seems to me, follows the laws of nature.  Does a volcano do damage to the planet?  I'd say it changes the planet, but 'damage' is a word that judges the change negative.  Climate change will make life more difficult for many plants and animals.  Some will probably thrive.  As I think about this, probably the only 'objective' use of 'damage the planet' would be to describe its total annihilation at which point pieces of the earth would, I guess, scatter in space, and still exist, but in a different way.  

Who is the narrator, Blonde Politics/The Silly Serious? 

Finally, I've never seen this YouTube presenter before,  I was impressed with the presentation, but I did want to at least minimally vet her before sharing with my readers.  So I did look her up.  Here's what I found in a quick search.  She's Australian Joanna Richards.

"Hey.

I am a writer, actor, and academic.

I love to create art, and feel fortunate to be able to blend my various interests to create meaningful work. Above all else, I love to laugh, and make others laugh! Using art to tackle important and controversial topics, I hope to create work that challenges people without making them feel defensive.

My academic research focuses on the relationship between gender, political authority, and language philosophy. I frequently appear in print and on television to discuss issues relating to gender and representation. Sometimes I am on tv pretending to be someone else!

Please reach out if you want to chat.

Affliations

Institute for Governance Policy Analysis - Doctor of Philosophy (in progress)
University of Canberra - Bachelor of Philosophy (First Class Honours)
Moscow Art Theatre School - Fine Arts Conservatory (Stanislavski Intensive)

Australian National University - Bachelor of International Relations"

The reach out seems serious.  At the bottom of the page it says:  

"email: hello@joannarichards.com     Currently in: New York City"

   

Solano, California - one of the cities tech bros are trying to create  

On the video, Joanna talks about one the tech bros billionaires goals to build private tech, corporate owned cities.  Which made me think of stories I read when I still had a subscription to the LA Times about tech billionaires buying up land in northern California to build such a city.  Only the story didn't get into the more sinister underpinnings Joanna mentions.  You can read an AP story about this here.  They did qualify to put the proposal on the ballot, but later withdrew it.  But they're planning to be back in 2026.  And as I listened to the video again, Joanna does mention Solano. (about 11:40 in the video).

[Let me add one more note:  I'm using Tech Bros as the technical term for white men who get rich through IT and generally think they know more than everyone else and that the rule of law doesn't apply to them.  This definition is open for editing.]

Stay Alive In 2025

1.  Happy New Year seems inappropriate as we enter 2025.  Yes, enter, like we are going into a different space.  Where the traditional rules of engagement are ignored by the incoming president of the united states.  The rest of us can no longer depend on the rules to protect us.  And by taking the high road and simply following the rules, we will be buried.  

We're still in this place where people are going about their lives almost normally, when in 20 days we get a broken human as our new president and he's surrounded by similarly afflicted people.  That normality is going to change.  Rapidly for some, more slowly for others.  The unhoused have been living in that world already.  LGBTQ+ and immigrants and people of color have also been feeling it, and it will quickly get worse.  

The rest of us have to help protect them, because it's the right thing to do.  But for those who need a more personal reason, well, eventually it will be you with a target on your back.  

There are times when following the rules can get you killed.  Like packing your suitcase and quietly following the directions of the Nazis to get on the train.  Times where acts of resistance and sabotage are the morally correct actions.  It's time to reread Saul Alinsky. 

"In his theory of means and ends, Alinsky puts across a question, which states whether the ends justify the means. According to the theory, the ends entail what individuals want, or goal, while means entail the activities of how to get what they want or to achieve the goal. In his discussion, Alinsky thought that the morality of actions did not require to be judged in itself, but rather be weighed against the morality of inaction. In the chapter on the means and ends, Alinsky stated that the issue of means and ends is usually viewed in a strategic and pragmatic manner by the man of action. In his arguments, he pointed out that the man of action only gets to ask of ends when they can be achieved and of means whether they will work for his plans."

Morally balancing ends and means is not a simple task and many have and will do it poorly.  Start with actions whose ends are not major violations to practice before taking more consequential actions.  Remember, many of our incoming President's supporters are rabid supporters of their interpretation of the Second Amendment, and they have and intend to use their guns. 

Examine your values.  List them. Prioritize them.  Know which ones are most important.  Then use your values to actively guide your actions.  

2.  Small But Vocal

United Against Book Bans offers an important lesson:

A small but vocal group is driving the current flood of book bans in school and public libraries across the country.

 Every resistance group, almost by definition, comes from a very small group that is dedicated to their cause.  We don't all have to fight every battle.  We each need to focus on one or two issues (while also supporting people fighting other battles as we can).  Here's United Against Book Bans tools:

"It's important to counter those voices by uniting in support of the freedom to read in your local community. How can you and your community unite against book bans? We've put together this action toolkit to help you get started.

Are you part of an organization? You can find additional resources to amplify and support the Unite Against Book Bans campaign in the UABB Toolkit PDF.

Talking Points

Contact Decision Makers

Contact Media

Grassroots Organizing

Social Media Tools

Branded Materials"

3.  Focus 

We took the grandkids to Cirque du Soleil yesterday. (An example of how we are still living what seems like a normal life.) All the performers break the rules of what normal people can do.  This woman, wrapped in a long red cloth found ways to seemingly defy gravity.  They are able to do these amazing feats by focusing on their skills, building the appropriate body and mind muscles, and then, during their acts, focusing on perfection.  

I challenge my readers to keep this image in mind as you focus on keeping our democracy alive.  

4.  My New Years Resolution 

My resolution is to perform at least one act of resistance every day of 2025.  I realize 'resistance' seems to be 'against' and I want to also include acts of affirmation, of strengthening democracy, but haven't figured out the right word yet.  

This can be as basic as speaking up to racists, misogynists, homophobes. You don't have to save the world each day.  Just plugging a hole in the dyke is resistance.  in Reading Alinsky's books and other books that give you tools for your spirit and for action.  Reading the United Against Book Banning group's Tool Kit to take action and applying them to your most cherished causes is a first step.  Go to all the links in this post and read.  Those are acts of resistance and building your resources.  Find other good resources and prescriptions for action and leave them in the comments.  

Cancelling My LA Times Subscription [Updated]

[UPDATES:  Here's the link to the second post on this topic. The Nov 3 UPDATE is at the bottom of the original article]

Overview:  I'm giving context to why I cancelled my subscription.  I look back to heroic actions taken by the  New York Times and the Washington Post during the Vietnam war to compare to what appears to be the cowardly action of the Post and the LA Times owners today.  

I'd note that while other papers have discussed the LA Times' decision, the LA Times as so far not had any article about this issue. 

So we start with the Pentagon Papers story.  Then we go to the vetoing of editorials supporting Kamala Harris for president by the owners of the two newspapers this week.  

Then I mention an important article by Vaclav Havel that directly addresses what happens when owners of businesses voluntarily comply to pressure from authoritarian governments.  But I'll save that discussion for the next post.  

 In 1971, The New York Times and the Washington Post were given copies of "The Pentagon Papers."  This was a classified report on the Vietnam War.  .  

One of the researchers, Daniel Ellsberg, was disturbed that the research showed that the US government was lying to the people of the United States about major aspects of the Vietnam war.  

Student protests had been going on constantly.  In spring of 1970, four students at Kent State were shot dead by National Guardsman called to quell the protests on campus.  This led to huge protests all over US campuses.  

While I was a young adult during the times of the Pentagon papers and it is all still vivid in my mind, I'm writing all this because I realize that every US citizen under the age of 53, was not even born then.  Even though they may have heard about the Pentagon Papers, most are probably have a very fuzzy understanding of the significance.  I know that was my experience of current events that took place in recent history but before I was born. I'm just summarizing some highlights.  You can read more at Wikipedia.  Their article starts with the contents of the Papers.  You have to scroll down to learn about the politics of publishing them in the newspapers.  

Ellsberg copied the Pentagon Papers.  In those days you generally had to copy page by page.  He took them to Kissinger (who he knew) and to  key Members of Congress, but didn't get the support he needed.  Then he went to the New York Times and shared them.  The Times began publishing excerpts on June 13.

The Nixon Administration tried to stop the publication by the Times with an injunction.  The Washington Post then began to publish the documents.  Also, Alaska US Senator Mike Gravel placed the full Pentagon Papers into the public record.

The Supreme Court decided 6-3 that

"Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.

— Justice Black[56]"  [Wikipedia]

Unfortunately the court's decision doesn't appear to be a compelling value to the owners who quashed the endorsements in their papers.  

[Another interesting comparison to today: the Times published the first piece on June 13.  The US Supreme Court announced its decision on June 30!]

Ellsberg was personally charged but was not found guilty.  

I offer you this because this week the owners of both the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post overruled their editorial boards' decisions to endorse Kamala Harris for president.  There have been resignations by editors of both papers over this.  

We can speculate why the owners took these actions.

The MSNBC headline was:

"The Billionaire Owners of the Washington Post and LA Times Just Capitulated to Trump"

NPR's headline didn't attribute a motive to the Washington Post's decision, 

"Washington Post' won't endorse in White House race for first time since 1980s"

but quoted former Washington Post former Executive Editor Martin Baron:  

"This is cowardice, a moment of darkness that will leave democracy as a casualty," Baron said in a statement to NPR. "Donald Trump will celebrate this as an invitation to further intimidate The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos (and other media owners). History will mark a disturbing chapter of spinelessness at an institution famed for courage."

This is, of course, why I have included the story of the Pentagon Papers.  This is a far different action this week by  the owner of the Washington Post than we saw from Katherine Graham, the owner of the Post in 1971.  

Jeff Bezos, of course, is the owner of Amazon and one of the richest men in the world.  

Patrick Soon-Shiong is a billionaire doctor who got rich based on medical technology he developed.  His parents fled China during the Japanese occupation in WW II and Soon-Shiong was born in South Africa in 1952.  I don't know exactly what his situation was, but here's a description of the status of Chinese in South Africa in Wikipedia:

"In 1966 the South African Institute of Race Relations described the negative effects of apartheid legislation on the Chinese community and the resulting brain drain:

No group is treated so inconsistently under South Africa's race legislation. Under the Immorality Act they are Non-White. The Group Areas Act says they are Coloured, subsection Chinese ... They are frequently mistaken for Japanese in public and have generally used White buses, hotels, cinemas and restaurants. But in Pretoria, only the consul-general's staff may use White buses .. Their future appears insecure and unstable. Because of past and present misery under South African laws, and what seems like more to come in the future, many Chinese are emigrating. Like many Coloured people who are leaving the country, they seem to favour Canada. Through humiliation and statutory discrimination South Africa is frustrating and alienating what should be a prized community.[5]: 389–390"

One would think that both Bezos and Soon-Shiong are rich and powerful enough to be able to stand up to Trump.  But I'm guessing they both have goals and ambitions about what they still want to do with their companies.  And they have put these ambitions above risking the possibility of retribution from Trump if he gets elected.  

And I'm guessing Soon-Shiong, while treated as a non-white in South Africa, also took some solace that he wasn't treated as Black.  It would be interesting to know how he felt when Nelson Mandela was freed from prison and eventually became the president of South Africa and won a Nobel Prize.  

His behavior in this matter suggests those events didn't really register with him positively.  He's certainly now showing Mandela's courage in fighting an authoritarian government.

This post is long enough.  I wanted to also talk about Vaclav Havel's essay, "The Power of the Powerless" which is highly relevant to the actions of actions of these two wealthy newspaper owners.  I'll do that in another post.  For those who want to get ahead, here's a link to the essay.  It's very good.

Here's the link to the follow up post on Havel's essay.

Cancelling the LA Times subscription was a clear choice, though not an easy one.  I grew up in LA and when my mother died, I inherited the house that I lived in from 6th grade through the beginning of college.  It's the house my mother lived in for 65 years, that we visited often, and that my children spent time when they visited their grandmother.  In addition to getting reasonably good news coverage, I also got local news that was relevant to owning a house there and visiting.  

But various social media folk have suggested other newspapers to switch to and I'll look into that.  Though I won't get  the local LA and California news.  I'd note that when you cancel, you get a list of one or two word reasons to let them know why you cancelled.  The best I could do was 'editorial policy' or something like that.  Leaving comments elsewhere limits you to very few words.  

[UPDATE Sunday November 3]

From an October 25, 2024  article in the LA Times, we learn what Soon-Shiong, the billionaire owner, said about the decision not to endorse anyone for president, even though the editorial board was about to endorse Harris:

“'I have no regrets whatsoever. In fact, I think it was exactly the right decision,' he said in an interview with The Times on Friday afternoon. 'The process was [to decide]: how do we actually best inform our readers? And there could be nobody better than us who try to sift the facts from fiction' while leaving it to readers to make their own final decision."

Today's LA Times editorial page seems to belie that policy.  Instead of "leaving it to readers to make their own decisions," the LA Times has a long list of ballot measures and candidates they endorse for other offices from local and state to federal.    

"Election 2024

The Times’ electoral endorsements for Nov. 5

STATEWIDE BALLOT MEASURES

Proposition 2: Yes

Proposition 3: Yes

Proposition 4: Yes

Proposition 5: Yes

Proposition 6: Yes

Proposition 32: Yes

Proposition 33: No

Proposition 34: No

Proposition 35: No

Proposition 36: No

LOS ANGELES CITY

City Council District 2: Adrin Nazarian

City Council District 10: Heather Hutt

City Council District 14: Ysabel Jurado

Charter Amendment DD: Yes

Charter Amendment LL: Yes

Charter Amendment HH: Yes

Charter Amendment II: Yes

Charter Amendment ER: Yes

Charter Amendment FF: No

LOS ANGELES COUNTY

District attorney: George Gascón

Measure A: Yes

Measure E: Yes

Measure G: Yes

LOS ANGELES COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT

Seat 1: Andra Hoffman

Seat 3: David Vela

Seat 5: Nichelle Henderson

Seat 7: Kelsey Iino

LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT

District 1: Sherlett Hendy Newbill

District 3: Scott Schmerelson

District 5: Karla Griego

Measure US: Yes

LOS ANGELES COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT JUDGES

Office No. 39: Steve Napolitano

Office No. 48: Ericka J. Wiley

Office No. 97: Sharon Ransom

Office No. 135: Steven Yee Mac

Office No. 137: Tracey M. Blount

STATE LEGISLATURE

Assembly District 52: Jessica Caloza

Assembly District 54: Mark Gonzalez

Assembly District 57: Sade Elhawary

Senate District 35: Michelle Chambers

U.S. HOUSE AND SENATE

U.S. Senate: Adam B. Schiff

27th Congressional District: George Whitesides

30th Congressional District: Laura Friedman

45th Congressional District: Derek Tran

47th Congressional District: Dave Min

Read the full endorsements online at latimes.com/opinion."

Brian Taylor Cohen Interviews Heather Cox Richardson - Watch This!

This is an important interview by Brian Taylor Cohen, one of the brightest and most articulate commentators (I want to say on the air, and he does appear on cable news, but he's also a powerful presence on the internet via Twitter, YouTube, and other platforms) and Heather Cox Richardson, an important US historian who uses history to inform current events.  

A couple of points they make that jumped out at me. 

1. Taking Over World Money Supply. She talks about how Trump is 78 years old and not in great health, and could leave Vance in charge.  Vance is Thiel's pawn.  Peter Thiel is a 'tech bro' interested in crypto currency and this could lead to taking control over the world money supply.  

2. Whenever there is a new technology, and she lists mining, cotton, diamonds, copper, oil as examples, there are no regulations at first and a few people get very rich and powerful to the detriment of everyone else.

(#1 and #2 are intertwined starting around 5:45 to about 7:40)

3.  Trump's succeeded because his actions are so outrageous that people can't conceive he's being real.   They want to take away abortion, get rid of medicare, etc. people don't believe it.  They're planning that.  We need to take it seriously. (about 8:30 min)

4.  The Big Lie. If your roommate steals $20 you can get mad at him.  But if he schemes to take over your family's bank account, retirement funds, your family's  house, it's beyond comprehension.  Don't have emotional groundwork to get mad because it's too outrageous to imagine.  That's what Trump has done.  Of course the Supreme Court wouldn't give the President to commit crimes in office, but they did.(about 10:50)

5. History- Turning on a Dime - History taught me that American society can turn on a dime.  I've been waiting and it didn't happen.  But since Biden pulled out of race, the US has turned on a dime.  (about 17 min)

There's a lot in between that links each of the points together worth listening to.  

This video has two very bright people dissecting what's happening and where we seem to be going.  

At the end they push two of their books probably worth reading:

Richardson:  Democracy Awakening coming out in paperback in October

Cohen:  Shameless  How Republicans used long term plans to change the US, which we can see most clearly with the Supreme Court.  

Why Making Real Time Sense Of Israeli-Gaza War Is So Difficult -Part I [Updated]

I've avoided posting about the Israeli-Gaza war for a number of reasons. (The one exception is this post recommending folks watch the Battle of Algiers.) 

The LA Times screenshot below articulates the thoughts behind my hesitation. 

Not that I'm either, but it does feel like people are being forced to pick a side and then attacked for it.  For many nuance is a copout.  

I've been thinking about this post since Hamas attacked Israel.  I've been writing it for about six weeks. Writing, at least the way I write, forces me to learn, to confront those statements I'm not certain about (most) with internet searches and trying my thoughts out on friends.  

The post has been growing organically.  As I write some things, later news events cause me to look up other assertions relevant to all of this.  

This post isn't supposed to be answers, but rather an annotated list of things (yes, I'd like a better word than that, suggestions?) people should know about before taking a firm position on the situation.  Each item is worthy of its own book length discussion. Most of these issues are intertwined.  Separating them into discrete items makes it easier to talk about them, but can be misleading, so read with caution.  Here's the list as it stands today (January 18, 2024)

1.  PROPAGANDA, MISINFORMATION, OBLITERATION OF TRUTH

2.  THE PROBLEM OF NETANYAHU 

3A.  HISTORIC ANTI-SEMITISM

3B.  THE HOLOCAUST

4.  GENOCIDE

5.  ZIONISM

6.  ISRAELI MISTREATMENT OF PALESTINIANS 

7.  TEACH YOUR CHILDREN WELL - PALESTINIAN AND ISRAELI EDUCATION

8.  RUSSIAN IMMIGRANTS AND ISRAEL'S RIGHT WING TILT 

9.  IGNORANCE 

10.  HAMAS

11.  GUERRILLA WARFARE

12.  WHY GETTING JEWS OUT OF ISRAEL SEEMS EASIER THAN NATIVE AMERICANS GETTING EUROPEANS OUT OF THE UNITED STATES

I've 'finished' 1-8.  I've decided that this is too long for most readers, so I'm going to break it down into several posts, starting with 1 through 3B.  A version of 11 - Guerrilla Warfare - is already up offering you the movie Battle of Algiers.  

1.  PROPAGANDA, MISINFORMATION, OBLITERATION OF TRUTH

Democracy requires citizens have access to information - how organizations work, who has power and how they use it - that enables us to make intelligent choices in how we lead our lives and who we vote for to represent us in government. 

Politicians and citizens have always bent the truth in their favor, but today the truth is almost unrecognizable. Trump's Republican Party realizes their ideas are outmoded and they can only win major elections by lying and subterfuge.  Right wing billionaires scheme to protect their wealth and ability to do as they please without regard to others.  Foreign authoritarian governments (ie Russia, Iran, China) have an interest in 'proving' to their citizens that democracy cannot work and destroying democracy in the US would be their greatest victory.  

Here's an Anchorage Daily News headline Dec. 19 2023 on a Washington Post story:

"The rise of AI fake news is creating a ‘misinformation superspreader’"

The story it makes my argument:

"Historically, propaganda operations have relied on armies of lowpaid workers or highly coordinated intelligence organizations to build sites that appear to be legitimate. But AI is making it easy for nearly anyone — whether they are part of a spy agency or just a teenager in their basement — to create these outlets, producing content that is at times hard to differentiate from real news."

So, starting off this discussion, I'd note that from even before the Hamas attack on Israel, false information was being spread to support and attack anyone who ventured to comment on this topic.  Russia sees it as a way to peel off voters from Biden to improve Trump's election to a second term knowing Trump would much more vigorously support Russia's plans in Ukraine and the world.  

It's also a way to divert world attention away from Ukraine and onto Israel.  (This may be just a brief sentence, but I suspect it's an important factor.)

While I think today (in January) the outline of the war is clearer than it was when I started, there is constant misinformation spread in mainstream media as well as social media.

2.  THE PROBLEM OF NETANYAHU 

Before Netanyahu was ever prime minister I found a book he authored on the bargain table at Borders Books in Anchorage.  So this was before 1996 when he first became prime minister.  I read the book and was appalled.  What I remember most vividly was a sentence where he said something to the effect of "I never met an Arab I could trust."  I didn't keep the book, but I've looked on line to see what books he wrote before 1996.  Wikipedia lists Netanyahu's books.  Here are the ones published before 1996:

• International Terrorism: Challenge and Response. Transaction Publishers. 1981. 
• Terrorism: How the West Can Win. Avon. 1987.
• Fighting Terrorism: How Democracies Can Defeat Domestic and International Terrorism. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 1995.

All these are edited books, with Netanyahu providing the introduction.  What I recall was more of an autobiographical work.  But I can't find any reference to such a book by Netanyahu before the 2022 autobiography.  

But I did look at an online preview of Terrorism: How The West Can Win. [click on Preview at the link].  This is an edited volume and Netanyahu introduces other speakers at a conference, so these excerpt probably cannot be directly attributed to Netanyahu.  But he has organized this conference and invited the presenters.  Netanyahu edited the book and presumably decided what went in and what didn't. [And we'll see later that this sentiments reappear in the current crisis.]  

The book ignores the idea of terrorism being the last resort of an oppressed people who have no legal way to protest their condition or change it.  Rather it is Civilization versus the Savages.  He quotes Gibbons of the fall of the Roman Empire 

Then he goes on to say that the same dynamic is happening today - civilization vs. the savages.  

This is the language that Europeans used to justify conquering non-Christian lands in the 16 and 1700s.  It's how the US government justified removing Native Americans from their land and killing those who resisted.  And one might argue, how the current Israeli government seems to treat Palestinians in the West Bank as they confiscate their property to make room for Jewish settlers in the West Bank.

I don't know what Netanyahu says about the Jewish terrorists who fought against the British occupiers of Palestine in the first half of the 20th Century.  The deadly bombing of the King David Hotel in 1946 was organized by future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.  The book preview does include the index which does list   "King David Hotel Incident on page 45", but the preview on line doesn't go to page 45. In fact it has no page numbers.  He specifically rejects the idea that "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."  But what about the Colonists who threw tea into Boston Harbor, or Ho Chi Minh who fought the French and then the Americans to free Vietnam from colonial rule?  

Netanyahu has also  been the subject of criminal prosecutions and huge public demonstrations against his weakening of the judicial branch of government.  Some have argued that pursuing this war is a way for Netanyahu to distract the nation from his legal problems.

It would be interesting to know the relationship between Netanyahu and Henry Kissinger about whom Netanyahu Netanyahu said we "have known one another for 'many years,'”  They seem to be kindred spirits.  

"Kissinger believed in power and disdained abstract ideas about progress, fraternity, democracy and freedom, ideas that America disseminates around the world. In his 1994 book “Diplomacy,” he justified national interests as the desired basis of foreign policy, calling on American leaders not to abandon this even after winning the Cold War.

His approach was congruent with Israel’s foreign policy, which since the days of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion believes in force while harboring deep reservations about international institutions and norms such as human rights and weapons control. That is why the harsh criticism of Kissinger by the left as the person directly responsible for mass murder, atrocities in Cambodia, Laos and Chile, Bangladesh and Timor, and for the bloody and needless prolongation of the Vietnam War, is heard in Israel only among a small circle of anti-American leftists."  (from Haaretz)

My sense of Netanyahu is that he is an absolutist on Arabs and terrorists and sees the civilian deaths resulting from the bombing of Gaza are, in his mind, completely justifiable as he attempts to rid Israel of terrorists.  

3A.  HISTORIC ANTI-SEMITISM

I don't want to go through the history of anti-semitism here.  Go to the link if you need a briefing.  I mention it here only to say that the reactions to the Israeli-Gaza war are aggravated by the latent pool of historic anti-semitism that persists in the world today.  

Further we have the conflation of Israeli, Jew, and Zionist.  And the assumption many have of Israelis, of non-Israeli Jews, and Zionists being a unified organism that all support Netanyahu's policy of bombing Gaza.  Each of the groups has divisions and groups who support and oppose, to varying degrees, the bombing.  

It's easy for people who know little or nothing of other countries to group all the people as being united.  But just as the United States has many divisions, so do all other countries. 

I mention this because there are people with strong opinions about the war who really have little or no experience with or understanding of the many different types of Jews or Israelis, who know nothing about the history of the geography and politics of the Middle East, particularly the land where Israel is located.  

Many Jews feel - and the current tolerance on the right of Neo-Nazis verify those feelings - that anti-semitism is alive and well today in the world and that no matter what Israel does they will be vilified.  An Orthodox Jew told me once, he didn't care what the world thought, because it didn't matter what Israel did, they would always get blamed.  

3B.  THE HOLOCAUST

The details in this section are a little rough, but I think the general point is valid.

The loss of 6 million Jews during WW II, seems to have stirred the world to allow the establishment of a Jewish state in what had been the British held territory in Palestine.  There was a moral high ground that Jews had.  And they managed to tell a story of a people who escaped hell on earth to create the Land of Milk and Honey and the miracle of Making the Desert Bloom.  In 1967, these survivors repelled the attack from various Arab neighbors.  Moshe Dayan was an international hero. 

But things went downhill from there.  I suspect part of the problem was that Israelis wrapped themselves in the story of surviving the Holocaust and slogan "Never Again."  They used these to justify taking Arab property and forcing many Palestinians to flee as protecting themselves from another Holocaust.  And Arabs who refused to acknowledge the right of a State of Israel to exist, gave some legitimacy to this idea.  

But in refusing to become the victims ever again, they slipped into the role of the oppressors in the West Bank and Gaza.  There's enough fault on both sides, but using the Holocaust to justify their treatment of Arabs to the world and to themselves, meant that they began losing the PR war among the rest of the world.

[Update - January 19, 2024, I found this comment today in an article by Nurit Elhanan of Hebrew University:

"The only thing that unites the antagonistic Jewish ethnic groups in Israel is fear of the enemy and the quest for a Jewish national 'purity' along with the belief only a Jewish majority and a strong Jewish army can prevent another Holocaust, this time perpetrated by the Palestinians or other Muslim powers, such as Iran." [emphasis added]

So, this is the end of Part I.  Part II is now (1/21/24) up.   Part III is now done.  Still more parts will appear soon.