violence Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

CHQ: We Can Actually Do Something

Bill McKibben

Here are the rest of the Chautauqua Institution lecture series, Our Greatest Challenges (That We Can Actually Do Something About)

Wednesday, July 24: “The Chautauqua Climate Change Initiative welcomes environmentalist and writer Bill McKibben back to the Amphitheater stage, where he’ll be joined by journalist, Professor, and Executive Director of the George Washington University Alliance for a Sustainable Future and Planet Forward creator Frank Sesno as they discuss work both men are doing to catalyze climate action across generations.”

This was the liveliest talk of the week because it involved the interaction between McKibben, who I saw 30 or more years ago, and Sesno, who I’ve read. The bad news: Sunday, July 21, 2024, was the hottest day on record; worse news: Monday, July 21, was hotter.

Frank expressed optimism because of the young people he worked with at ASF. Bill became faux grumpy with Sesno’s “the youth are the future” tone. Faux because he notes that in his 350.org group, much of the fossil fuel divestment campaign took place on college campuses.

Still, that’s why he’s involved with Third Act, a “community of Americans over sixty determined to change the world for the better. Third Act harnesses an unparalleled generational power to safeguard our climate and democracy.”

April 22, 1970

Some older folks were involved in the original Earth Day in 1970. They vote in large numbers, tend to know people in power, and are motivated to win back the lost gains. McKibben and Sesno both have grandchildren born in 2024. They may not be as robust as their young counterparts, so they sometimes participate in Rocking Chair Rebellions. While having an arrest record as a 19-year-old could be problematic, older folks don’t care nearly as much, notes McKibben, who had been busted recently.

Bill understands why young people may be sad and cynical. Frank countered that they are angry, outraged, and motivated.

McKibben touted California’s robust renewable energy infrastructure. However, he chastised New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D-NY) for putting congestion paring in New York City on hold.

Sesno, the journalist, believes storytelling is how to sway people. He tells of a Maryland farmer about how the rains have changed long, soaking events to “deluges that wash off the topsoil, wash off the seed.” He believes that intergenerational connection creates “lived history in context.

Sesno is still a working journalist, so he eschews speaking about specific political candidates. McKibben, by contrast, would be involved with a Kamala Harris fundraiser the following day.

Being a parent

Thursday, July 25: “American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Timothy P. Carney will deliver a lecture based on his newest book, Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be. He argues that the high standards set for modern American parenting are unrealistic and set parents and kids up to fail—and that it’s time to end this failed experiment.”

Carney’s premise is that the declining birth rate in the United States is a result of “civilizational sadness.” “2007 saw the greatest number of births in the U.S. history, and people were calling it a baby boom.” Then, it fell so that it is below what demographers call the replacement level, a total fertility rate of 2.1. There are fewer people under ten than over 60.

He believes this is bad for several reasons. The number of retired people over the number of working people is skewed. While Social Security can continue to make payments, “if there’s no one there to answer the phone when you call the plumber about a leaky pipe, it doesn’t do you any good.”

Another point he made is that, according to Gallup surveys, American women still want between 2 and 3 kids. The birth rate is about 1.6. “If you ask women of childbearing age how many do you want to have, they say 2.3 is the ideal. How many do you intend to have? They say it averages to about 1.9, so already there’s a gap… between our ideal and our intention, and then the gap between our intention… These are not just simple deficits but a deficit of the most important thing: your family is the most important thing in your life, and we have a deficit of connection, flesh, and blood. That’s the real problem.”

Sidewalks

I agreed with quite a few of his observations. Helicopter parenting leads to an epidemic of childhood anxiety. So-called free-range parents have been investigated for neglect in the 2010s because of how far they left their young children to walk on their own. Sidewalks are good. “Walkability does matter for kids to walk to school to roam freely and, importantly, safety… The challenges of raising a family in car-dependent societies are steep. One solution is to build towns for people, not for cars.” He also touts affordable starter homes and showed mild support in favor of immigration.

Carney believes communities and churches could have mixers for young adults rather than them using dating apps; it seems quaint. Ultimately, civilizational sadness can be addressed by another baby boom because “babies are good.” He was at Chautauqua with his wife and most or all of their six kids.

His Catholic faith meant that he opposed IVF. I’ll admit to being annoyed; both my wife and I felt that he was blaming women for infertility problems because they waited too long. He wasn’t particularly supportive of adoption or surrogacy.

Ending violence

Friday, July 25: Chico Tillmon, the executive director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab’s Community Violence Intervention Leadership Academy, will speak to share stories of success and lessons learned from his work with the CVI Leadership Academy and throughout his career to effect positive change at a systemic level.”

Dr. Tillmon spent a LOT of time providing bleak statistics about the number of people, especially black people, shot every day. He asked, “Where do you feel least safe?” The school was relatively safe in his Chicago neighborhood of Austin, but the walk home could be perilous.

Moreover, he pointed out the disparate response from the country. After the Parkland High School shooting, there was so much support that it was overwhelming. Meanwhile, Chicago on the 4th of July weekend, with a like number of fatalities, and it’s business as usual.

However, a cookie-cutter approach will not usually work. It should be targeted to that particular area, its people, and its needs. He was proud that President Biden recognized him in a Rose Garden event.

I believe he ran out of time to get to more concrete solutions.

Salman Rushdie attacked at Chautauqua

doomsday prophesying

As utterly horrific as the savage attack on author Salman Rushdie was, it was also shocking WHERE it occurred.

The Chautauqua Institution, 17 miles northwest of Jamestown in southwest New York State, has been, since 1874, “a community of artists, educators, thinkers, faith leaders and friends dedicated to exploring the best in humanity. Whether it’s your first time visiting or your fiftieth, our promise is the same: Wisdom will be gleaned. Memories will be made. Life will be enriched. Positive change is your charge.”

For instance, week 7, August 6-13, was Interfaith Lecture Theme: Home: A Place for Human Thriving. “‘Home is where the heart is’ is a sentiment that has been repeated for over a hundred years, known to mean where our loved ones are. In reality, it is also the place wherein ‘family’ in many forms and contexts is created, wherein each member can thrive if the nurturing elements of shelter, security, caring, nutrition, and felt love are present. In this week, we will look at the essentiality of ‘home’ from multiple perspectives and insights and perhaps to see more clearly into our own lives and histories.”

I know many people IRL who have attended CI multiple times and were refreshed by the experience. It was a place my wife and I thought to travel this summer, except that plans for sending the daughter to college were more complicated than anticipated.

Kelly, who’s been to Chautauqua Institute, wrote of the assailant about “a learned hatred in service of a small god.” Quite accurate. “I have never been able to wrap my head around the idea of God–a being so vast and powerful as to be able to create the entire Universe–nevertheless being apparently so thin-skinned as to be offendable by anything some being says, thinks, writes, or does down here on Earth.”

Hate does not take a vacation

This. Warner Bros. Discovery Condemns Threats Against J.K. Rowling Made in Wake of Salman Rushdie Attack. “The Harry Potter author received a death threat on Twitter after showing her support for Rushdie.”

Add to this all the threats of political violence, particularly in the United States. WAY back in October 2021, Rachel Kleinfeld documented the phenomenon.

“From death threats against previously anonymous bureaucrats and public-health officials to a plot to kidnap Michigan’s governor and the 6 January 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, acts of political violence in the United States have skyrocketed in the last five years. The nature of political violence has also changed. The media’s focus on groups such as the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and Boogaloo Bois has obscured a deeper trend: the ‘ungrouping’ of political violence as people self-radicalize via online engagement.”

Worse, “ideas that were once confined to fringe groups now appear in the mainstream media. White supremacist ideas, militia fashion, and conspiracy theories spread via gaming websites, YouTube channels, and blogs, while a slippery language of memes, slang, and jokes blurs the line between posturing and provoking violence, normalizing radical ideologies and activities.”

Political violence

In the past week, I’ve read or watched The Hill: “Pro-Trump backlash to FBI search fuels concern over political violence.” PBS News Hour: “Assessing threats of political violence and rising extremism on the far-right.”

And The Atlantic: What Comes After the Search Warrant? Why August 8 may become a new hinge point in U.S. history. “This country is tracking toward a scale of political violence not seen since the Civil War. It’s evident to anyone who spends significant time dwelling in the physical or virtual spaces of the American right. Go to a gun show. Visit a right-wing church. Check out a Trump rally. No matter the venue, the doomsday prophesying is ubiquitous—and scary.

“Whenever and wherever I’ve heard hypothetical scenarios of imminent conflict articulated, the premise rests on an egregious abuse of power… I’ve always walked away from these experiences thinking to myself: If America is a powder keg, then one overreach by the government, real or perceived, could light the fuse.“

Freedom

Rafia Zakaria wrote an opinion piece on CNN: Salman Rushdie has risked his life for decades; US must stand up against censorship, too. “The horrendous attack on Rushdie, an author who has been a champion for free speech and intellectual freedom by putting his life on the line, should be a lesson to the people of his chosen country. Stifling freedom of expression isn’t justified — whether it’s the extreme action of an ayatollah condemning an author to death for his work or book bans by zealots who believe that America can only be made ‘great’ again by furthering the cause of white supremacy.”

I must admit that I’m very nervous. The only good news is that maybe global warming will do us in first. (Too cynical?)

Workplace abuse abounds

show appreciation

Workplace Violence Prevention Our family veterinarian sent their customer base an email letter this month. It indicated that several of their customers, many of whom had adopted animals during the COVID pandemic, had made appointments for their pets, but failed to keep them, and in large numbers. This meant that the vets had to institute a policy of requiring a downpayment for their services.

Also, the letter indicated that some of their staff had experienced workplace abuse, not from the animals but from their human companions. Unacceptable, the vet office proclaimed.

On CBS Mornings, some doctors in Idaho were uncomfortable wearing their scrubs in public, lest they rile up someone. One technician quit and took a job as a Walmart clerk. These were the groups of people who were HEROES in America not that long ago.

Recently, I was in an urgent care facility in my area that has been hammered by the number of people needing COVID tests. We were told at 4 pm that it would take about an hour to be seen, and that was about right. About 5:30, a woman came in with her son, who was maybe 8 years old. She was told that it may take as much as two hours. She started SCREAMING at the intake person. “What if my son were in need of immediate care?” She carried her son out – though he had walked in; maybe she went to an actual emergency room.

Violence against Healthcare Workers is A Worldwide Phenomenon With Serious Consequences.

Education

From an email I received:

In Indiana, school board members were forced to flee and escape to their vehicles to escape individuals who tried to intimidate them by force.

In Idaho, school board meetings have been canceled because the school couldn’t ensure that the scheduled event would be secure and free of violence.

In Maryland, school board officials began receiving violent and personal threats from individuals in retaliation for supporting the wearing of masks.

Also, Justice Department and FBI investigating a “disturbing” uptick in violence against school employees.

Did it happen?

The Scale of Under-Reporting is Widely Acknowledged. This predates COVID, and health care providers were the most regular targets. And I don’t know what to do, baring getting physically involved if it comes to that.

BTW, it is not just an American issue, as this UK article can attest.

The phenomenon has redoubled my effort to try to show appreciation to what they call the front-facing workers. They are the grocery store clerks, bus drivers, retail clerks, bank tellers, the people who you meet each day.

Lingering violence of ‘Birth of a Nation’

“one of the embarrassments of film scholarship”

In the CHRISTMAS EVE 2020 edition of the Boston Globe, there was a stunning bit from an article. Social Studies: “The lingering violence of ‘Birth of a Nation’” excerpted five articles from university-based publications.

The one I want to point out here is “The Birth of a Nation: Media and Racial Hate,” Harvard University (November 2020). The author is listed as D. Ang. I assume it is Desmond Ang, Assistant Professor of Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School.

The quotes

The 1915 movie “The Birth of a Nation” is infamous for its positive portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan, but what many people may not appreciate today is just how influential it was — and still is. Little surprise when the source material was the Thomas Dixon Jr. novel The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan. “Romance,” indeed.

Here are a couple of more recent contrasting opinions. James Agee: “To watch his work is like being witness to the beginning of melody, or the first conscious use of the lever or the wheel; the emergence, coordination and first eloquence of language; the birth of an art: and to realize that this is all the work of one man.” That man, of course, was D.W. Griffith.

Andrew Sarris: “Classic or not, ‘Birth of a Nation’ has long been one of the embarrassments of film scholarship. It can’t be ignored…and yet it was regarded as outrageously racist even at a time when racism was hardly a household word.”

As the Harvard professor notes, “an estimated 10 million Americans — roughly one-fifth of the adult white population — turned out to see the movie in its first two years,” and “newspaper reports from the period estimated that nearly 50 percent of adults in Boston, Baltimore, and New Orleans saw the film.”

The movie was screened via traveling roadshow rather than simultaneous nationwide release, and the professor finds that lynchings and race riots increased fivefold within a month of the movie’s arrival in a county. Also, counties that screened the film were much more likely to have a Klan chapter in 1930 — a correlation that persists into the 21st century, with more white supremacist groups and hate crimes in those counties than in counties that didn’t screen the movie.

The Binghamton Press

There were over 150 references to the movie in my hometown papers. It was first shown in the area the week of January 10, 1916, and played again in 1917. The Klan was quite visible in Binghamton, NY in the mid-1920s, as pictured here.

But I’m curious about how narrow those early showings were. It played for three days at the Stone Theater in early September of 1921. The anonymous movie compiler wrote, “It will be presented upon the same elaborate scale which has marked its recent presentations” in New York City and other large markets.

The film returned with a soundtrack recorded in 1930 but wasn’t shown until 1949. The Roberson Theatre showed it in 1979, but I see that one as a totally different experience. Robeson was an educational center where I saw movies by Fellini, Bergman, and Hitchcock, so I imagine there was some contextualization taking place.

The more recent references included a writer finding the placement of the film on the AFI’s best to be abhorrent. I suppose one could make the case that it was very good at being terrible.

Should I see this?

I’ll admit I’ve never seen the movie in its entirety. I’ve watched clips, of course. There were several bits of it in the 2018 film BlacKkKlansman.

As it turns out, one can find copies of the film, which runs for 195 minutes at the National Archives site. Next time I want to get ticked off, and have three hours on my hands, I guess I’ll check it out.

Sedition and other high crimes

“loser of the year”

The fact that the Supreme Court, as expected, rejected that absurd Texas lawsuit doesn’t fill me with the joy that it should.

Of course, the attempt to overthrow Joe Biden’s election victory was bogus. It is, presumably, again and yet again, the “end of the road” for the crusade to overturn the election. But America lost anyway.

His angry mob supporters spark terrorism fears. When he levels threats at the Republican Attorney General in Georgia, his rabid fans take him literally. “Brad Raffensperger… and his wife have received death threats, including by text message, and caravans have circled their house.”

People just trying to do their jobs

And, per a list from the New York Times:

* Dozens of his supporters, some armed, went to the home of Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s Democratic secretary of state, and began shouting obscenities.

* On Twitter, his supporters have posted photographs of the home of Ann Jacobs, a Wisconsin official, and mentioned her children.

* In Phoenix, about 100 of his supporters, some armed, protested at the building where officials were counting votes.

* In Vermont, officials received a voice message threatening them with “execution by firing squad.”

* Seth Bluestein, a Philadelphia official, received anti-Semitic and violent threats after Pam Bondi, the former Florida Attorney General and ally of IMPOTUS, publicly mentioned him.

* A Georgia poll worker went into hiding after a viral video falsely claimed he had discarded ballots.

Reality?

* Gabriel Sterling, another Georgia official, received a message wishing him a happy birthday and saying it would be his last. In a later interview with Time magazine, Sterling argued that elected politicians could defuse the threats by acknowledging that the election was fair. “Leadership is supposed to look like grown-ups in the room saying, ‘I know you’re upset, but this is the reality.'”

The reality, of course, is not the intent of the “reality” star. It appears to be to foment the violence, and he has succeeded. I agree with the official who worries, “I don’t know how this ends without violence and death.”

And I lay it at the feet of the guy who said, both in 2016 and 2020, long before the votes were counted, that if he didn’t win, the elections must have been rigged. So only one-quarter of Republicans believe Biden actually won.

High crimes

These 40 days of denial and disinformation got me to look at 18 USC Ch. 115: TREASON, SEDITION, AND SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES. It’s odd because it is the presumed, albeit outgoing, HEAD of the government that, one could argue is, per §2385, Advocating the overthrow of Government.

“Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or

“Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or

Conspiracy

“Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof—

“Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.”

One could – and I do – make the argument that in the words of Garry B. Trudeau, He’s “guilty, guilty, guilty.” I’m generally not a fan of sedition acts, as they almost always dampen free speech. But when actions by a soon-to-be-retired high-ranking government employee threaten the very fabric of democracy, I accept it.

Wusses

So why did 126 Republican members of Congress and about a dozen and a half state attorneys general sign on to this Supreme Court travesty? Fear of what he can do with that over $200 million that he has raised, ostensibly to fight the”rigged” election.

But he’ll have plenty of leftover cash. Those Republicans not toeing the orange line might get a well-funded primary challenge in 2022. He’s taking names, he said, like a demented Saint Nicholas, seeing who’s naughty or nice, to him.

Sometimes he tells the truth. Maybe he WILL start his own media company to take on the suddenly non-compliant FOX. This will give him the visibility for those other Republicans who want to make a 2024 White House run, that it’ll be an uphill climb.

Can’t win for losing

This week, the prominent German news magazine Der Spiegel named him its “loser of the year”. This happened the same day Time magazine named President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris its “Person of the Year.”

“In an article titled ‘Der Verlierer des Jahres…’ the publication’s Washington bureau chief Roland Nelles and Berlin-based correspondent Ralf Neukirch described him as a ‘man who … was never concerned with the common good, but always with one thing — himself.’

“Nothing is normal under him. He refuses to admit defeat. Instead, he speaks of massive electoral fraud, although there is no evidence for it. The whole thing is not surprising. His presidency ends as it began. Without decency and without dignity.”

I contend, though, that IMPOTUS has won. From that NYT:

His “attempts to overturn the election result are very unlikely to succeed. For that reason, the effort can sometimes seem like a publicity stunt — an effort… to raise money and burnish his image with his supporters.

“And it may well be all of those things. But it is also a remarkable campaign against American democracy. It has grown to include most Republican-run states, most Republican members of Congress, and numerous threats of violence. The new centerpiece in the effort is [that] lawsuit.” And the cowardly Republicans who signed on are “‘inflaming the public’, causing many voters to believe — wrongly — that a presidential election was unfair.”

If you Google 1918 Germany, you’ll find several references to one of the most disastrous political lies of the 20th century. “Powerful conservatives who led the country into war refused to accept that they had lost. Their denial gave birth to…the Dolchstosslegende, or stab-in-the-back myth.

“Its core claim was that Imperial Germany never lost World War I. Defeat, its proponents said, was declared but not warranted. It was a conspiracy, a con, a capitulation — a grave betrayal that forever stained the nation.” The “lies” were perpetrated by the liberals and the Jews. “That the claim was palpably false didn’t matter.” This is not a path the US should follow.

As my friend Alan notes, “He spends every day successfully sabotaging the institutions of our government, which means he is sabotaging the health and safety of every human being in the country. He is the greatest threat to the United States in its history.”