How we end most of the debate over immigration

I love this video from Robert Reich because it explodes the most ridiculous, hateful myths we see and hear in the "immigration" discussion. Reich is absolutely correct that undocumented workers are a net gain for the overall economy, pay billions in taxes, particularly Social Security, for which they will never receive the benefits for what has been paid, and are less of a drain on anti-poverty programs than Republican politicians and right wingers lead us to believe. 

However, Reich would admit, on my cross-examination, that employers hire undocumented workers because they are willing to work for less money and are more easily exploited than American citizen workers. Also, if we look at the history of immigration in our nation, we would see how American citizen laborers were continually undermined in their attempt to secure better wages, in part, due to  each successive wave of immigrants, particularly as our nation industrialized after the US Civil War. The only positive and perhaps ironic outcome of the 1920s draconian anti-immigration laws was that those terrible laws stabilized the population of workers so that, in the period of the 1930s through 1960s, American workers were able to more successfully negotiate collectively to procure better wages and then benefits. This is not the only reason, as the primary reason was the initial success of the National Labor Relations Act and Fair Labor Standards Act (labor union and labor law standards) from the New Deal in 1935 and 1938, respectively, and American productivity exploded after WWII, partly through government subsidized innovations, as well as New Deal and then US Highway Act of the 1950s investments in infrastructure. 

However, with America's wars against Central America in the 1980s, and then the NAFTA in 1993, our nation saw a steep rise in immigrants without proper paperwork. Why? From Central America, we saw and continue to see people desperately fleeing murderous regimes and now corporate fascistic economies in Central America, which regimes we actively supported. Then, millions of Mexican peasants, who had long been engaged in subsistence farming, were kicked off their lands due to American agribusiness flooding Mexican food places with cheaper fruits and vegetables, because of provisions in the NAFTA which kept government subsidies for American agribusiness, while opening Mexico to American agribusiness products.  The 1965 immigration reforms had some impact, but it would not have been significant had we not pursued these wars against Central American nations and developed the type of trade deals that beggared low scale workers and union trade jobs in the US, and peasants in Mexico. This article has a useful chart for immigration patterns, but the article's discussion masks the effect on low end workers in the late 1800s and early 1900s from free flowing immigration impeded growth in American wages in that era.  I must admit that, even as I recognize both sides of my family immigrated from Europe in the first decade of the 20th Century, with my grandmother and her mother literally fleeing murderous Cossacks.

Undocumented workers compete most often with citizens at the bottom of the wage scale, and are a factor (not the only one) that keeps down wages in that wage scale, which is why those of us in the upper middle class of professionals have a hard time understanding why workers at the lower wage scales have such rage and, if white, buy into the hateful rhetoric of Republicans on the topic of immigration.  For me, I support rights for undocumented workers and sanctuary cities and states.  I am appalled at the behavior and policies of the Trump administration, especially with the tear gassing of these desperate people at the border who need our love and support, not be attacked. So, what do we do public policy wise to get out of this conundrum that so often spews racist hatred from white folks here against darker skinned immigrants from Mexico, Central and sometimes South America? 

First, we should support increases in the minimum wage and enforcement measures to ensure employers are not undermining those wages. This will keep employers from using undocumented workers to keep down wages. Second, and most importantly, we should support the massive infrastructure re-development proposals from the Army Corps of Engineers (states can do this if the feds won't).  As I have long said, what we will see almost immediately, if we pursue the Army Corps of Engineers' proposals, is we actually need more immigrant workers, undocumented or otherwise, as we lack sufficient numbers of able bodied, younger citizens to perform this infrastructure work. And lots of Americans who are young and not interested in college would become immediately employed in good paying infrastructure re-development work. Infrastructure is one method of helping young people in our nation and free public college tuition is the other.  They work in tandem, not at odds with each other.  In any event, the number of jobs that will be created will defeat the concern I have voiced here about employers preying on undocumented workers to work for less, simply based upon where our present population demographics stand. Thus, in enacting the Army Corps of Engineers' infrastructure program, we can simply wave our legal wand and say, "All you undocumented folks, come on in and join the citizenry!" The number of jobs and the velocity of money being spent by consumers who are working will spin into even more jobs across the board--and if the kiosks have to come to McDonald's and Wal-Mart because there are not enough people to fill the jobs, then so be it, as we can then start a more robust discussion of UBI. This is, at the end, why I also support making it easier for workers to form and join labor unions (card-check) as we would demand, in the infrastructure program, prevailing wages/union wages. 

As we analyze the immigration issue in this manner, we begin to see why Republicans, starting with Trump, sometimes mouth interest in infrastructure, but never want to follow through.  They do not want to follow through because they know a truly massive infrastructure program destroys their anti-immigrant argument and would end up promoting labor unions, or higher wages even without more labor unions. I can't think of one Republican politician who claims to support infrastructure redevelopment who, in my cross-examination of them, would not reveal themselves as liars. 

The first thing we need, however, is we have to be kind with respect to the desperate people from other lands fleeing physical oppression or economic oppression, and we have to be kinder to undocumented workers who are already here.  Demonizing these people, depriving them of benefits to which they are entitled, starting with their children in our public schools, is wrong from any moral sense. What we have to do, public policy wise, is come together, citizens and non-citizens alike, to promote a healthier, stronger shared economy. If we are going to enforce any anti-immigration laws, it should be against those employers who hire them, not the people who have been so victimized. And if we go back to Reich's points, the idea that that these undocumented people are a net negative to our economy overall, or with respect to anti-poverty program usage and taxes paid, is simply a lie.  

To summarize, the public policy answers are: (1) minimum wage increases to $15 an hour; (2) infrastructure redevelopment consistent with the Army Corps of Engineers; (3) card check to promote labor unions; and (4) labor law enforcement increases against employers in industries which rely on undocumented workers who are being exploited.  And then wave the wand and officially welcome all immigrants who are here already as citizens.  There is no need for any wall, and no reason to behave in any way other than kind and supportive of people who are in need.  Oh, and if we think we will see too many people come from Central America, maybe this time we should promote policies and politicians there who actually want to help the people.  In Mexico, Obrador and his political party are expecting to pursue a major infrastructure program that may ironically cause Mexican immigrants to return to Mexico.  Imagine if we promoted such politicians and policies in Central America.  Yes, imagine all the people, living life in peace....You may say I'm a dreamer, but maybe I'm not the only one anymore. It is time to pursue these policies with boldness and vigor, and to push back against the hateful policies and rhetoric that demonizes people we should be embracing. 

The Scarlet Letter in American politics

Sometimes an accuser who makes the accusation of infamy against a wrongdoer may be seen to have less than pure motives, which eventually leads to the wrongdoer becoming martyred and forgiven, while the accuser is viewed as a graver danger to the larger community than the wrongdoer ever was. That, after all, was what was at play with Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter." It seems as if this is playing out in a (hashtag)MeToo incarnation as one reads through this article from Politico.com about the challenges the junior senator from New York, Kristen Gillibrand, is facing from corporate donors as she considers jumping into the 2020 presidential sweepstakes.

My Mom is one who does not forgive Gillibrand, though I wonder how much of that is from her Italian-background as she never forgave Elia Kazan when I did (I learned Kazan named those who were already named and many dead, and did so at the end after holding out for years to the detriment of his career).  Anyway, I have read the defense of Gillibrand over at the liberal-left blog, Lawyers, Guns & Money. I find it less than persuasive. They argue two things that they see as simple. First, they argue she was only part of a larger group of senators, so why single her out? Well, the Politico.com article shows that is not true. She led it, says Politico. And what I recall is she had had president-fever for awhile at that time, and had seen Franken as a competitor for 2020.  And as Al Franken said about her in a very strong and positive testimonial years before his scandal arose, she is a competitor.   So there's that, too. 

Second, the LGM post argues she was correct. Franken, in other words, was a cad toward women. My Mom says to that, Phooey. Well, she says something different, but why turn this into an R-rated post? Substantively, Al liked to squeeze some women's bodies without prior consent back in the day, at least up through 2010.  It was still terribly wrong even at the time, but apparently he had been fairly well behaved since then--and, unlike Trump and Kavanaugh, Franken was deeply contrite about the whole thing, and still is. The argument, better phrased at the time, is Democrats are hypocrites to give Franken a pass while attacking Trump, and now, as the nation has gone back to high school to go after us Baby Boomer guys, Kavanaugh.  I wondered just how much hypocrisy there would be if Franken had done penance, and been censured, for his previous conduct rather than resigned, however. The "Franken precedent" did not work with Kavanaugh anyway, and Kavanaugh now sits in a job where he can only be impeached, not defeated in an election.

What I remember feeling at the time of the Franken imbroglio was many of these Democratic Party senators, including Schumer, were jealous of and had never liked Franken because Franken did not work his way up to senator, but ran as a celebrity--starting at the top, if one puts it in the language these senators would understand. The senate is a club, after all, and you ain't in it. And I recall several seemed to fear Franken's wit and intellect, as, if one ever met many of these senators, one would be disappointed in how shallow they are outside of rank political talk. It is not like they read much literature, have any musical knowledge, or the like. These are not learned people for the most part but people who are driven, focused, and smooth in a glib sort of a way. When the pile-on occurred, I felt they were saying to themselves in their little club, "Oh, you think you're so special, huh, Mr. Hollywood-Manhattan-Harvard educated celebrity? Well, welcome to the big leagues!" As I say, the senate is a club and Franken never belonged, in their eyes.  If one reads the Wiki page bio of Gillibrand, one sees she is from an elite background and earnestly worked the system to which she had been literally born.  It is impressive because she is impressive in that "to the manner/manor born" way.  But one wonders, how much Elena Ferrante has she read since graduating from Dartmouth...

So, I guess, yeah, I find it amusing how corporate Democratic Party donors smelled something foul emanating from this junior senator from New York.  It is not, as Scott Lemieux at LGM blog thinks, a "misogyny tax," and Scott, since when do we sound like a right winger in talking about something we don't like as a "tax?" And if I read the article from Politico, it is from those donors who bought into the whole "It's her turn" and "We need a woman candidate" line for Hillary Clinton, meaning typical corporate Democrats who claim the mantle of feminism against Bernie-Bros, and at least one quoted in the article is a woman.  

For me at this point, since we are now so many news cycles away from the Franken scandal, is Gillibrand a progressive or a corporate Democrat? From this article, she may be a progressive, but I don't know if this is a costume or not.  It seems, though, if the corporate donors are not very enamored with her, that should make me feel, "Oh yeah! I like her!" But one must not make such assumptions as too often these matters are driven by personalities, though maybe we should "forgive" Gillibrand.  Come on, Ma!  Gillibrand is pushing to make post offices banks for regular income earners and the poor.  She is for Medicare for All.  She is for massive infrastructure re-development.  She's photogenic and speaks really, really well. She's got a better record than Cory Booker and Kamala Harris and hangs with Elizabeth Warren.  Aw, come on, Ma!  Insert Italian-American joke here: "What is Italian's Alzheimers?  It's when you forget everything except the grudges."

But, of course, let's remember the wisdom of George Carlin, who reminded us, in his "club" routine, that we are not in the club and why so many people are so miseducated by cable news.  Let's also think of Gore Vidal's thoughtful quip, "Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically by definition be disqualified from ever doing so," by which he meant the person is bought and paid for.  And Frank Zappa reminded us, "Politics is the entertainment division of the military-industrial complex."  

Bernie Sanders (and the late Paul Wellstone, who Franken revered, by the way) has always represented the far edge of the practical exception to what every one of these other senators have done to get to where they are now.  And don't think these other senators don't hate Sanders for being an interloper, though they admire how he paid his dues and did not start at the top.  There's that, I suppose.  I just wonder, too, whether this is all something Nat Hawthorne would find familiar, and maybe there is wisdom in turning another page after the ending in "The Scarlet Letter" and deciding the accuser is not so bad after all, either.  I realize the person in the story is a true villain from nearly the start, but we should engage literature, find differences in its lessons, and seek wisdom and, yes, forgiveness all around.  Gillibrand's motives were certainly not pure.  But she spoke to an important moment of cultural change in our nation, and as I said in an earlier blog post, maybe our day as white male Baby Boomers is done--unless there is, again, forgiveness all around, with the issue being the genuineness of our contriteness for some of us, at least.  

I am on a Louis Auchincloss run that does not seem to be abating...

I have been on a Louis Auchincloss run, and find his novels fascinating and gripping reading in this time of extreme inequality. I had first read what was Auchincloss' last novel, "Last of the Old Guard," from ten years ago, and found it brilliant in its portrayal of the rise of a now old style law firm. I highly recommend it to every lawyer who has any interest in reading any novel. 

Then, recently, I came across quite a few Auchincloss novels in various NM used bookstores. It seems strange to me to have found them here in New Mexico of all places, since the locus of the Auchincloss novels is almost always New York, particularly Manhattan or Long Island, and sometimes Newport, RI. Anyway, I read through--okay, devoured--"A Portrait in Brownstone," and then jumped into "A World of Profit," which I also found powerful, but darker than "Brownstone." That latter novel concerns strivers, particularly Jews, who had "invaded" the WASP NY Old Guard.  And please do not assume Auchincloss was anti-Semitic, as he is, in fact, far from it.  Right now, I am almost through "A Pursuit of the Prodigal," which is another lawyer-based novel and, man, it is awesome, and again has a Jewish lawyer interloper who, this time, is a less central character. Auchincloss' most famous novel, in his time, "The Rector of Justin," is expected to be next on the way...

For me, personally, Auchincloss proves if one is practicing transactional law, one may write more consistently and deeply. As a trial lawyer, I find it difficult to do more than write these sorts of drive-by's in my blog or on social media (I wrote my one and only novel while serving as a general counsel for two different start ups) as it is not necessary in a blog or social media to have to write something that is sustained. Even this weekend, I find myself worrying about cases I am currently handling, and upcoming appearances in court and in deposition. I also found it amusing when I read of Auchincloss' ability to write portions of his novels while his children were playing around him. That I could not ever do.  I was always with our children or not with them at all, as I think they would attest.  

As I not so humbly consider myself an acolyte (in terms of a follower) of the late Gore Vidal, I am struck I did not read Auchincloss sooner, considering how much Vidal admired Auchincloss' writings and Auchincloss as a person. What I admire about Auchincloss' works is his lens has a strong sociological bent, and not merely psychological in that Henry James manner, meaning it doesn't take Auchincloss a page to describe a woman putting on make-up in front of her bedroom mirror.  I have never found James to my liking, though one day that could change, I suppose. Auchincloss' prose style is post-Sinclair Lewis, meaning it is more "American" and therefore fast-paced in the way Lewis largely pioneered. The writing is sparse in style, as well, but remains elegant and thoughtful. Auchincloss is still very psychological in terms of character studies, which makes him more of American version of Somerset Maugham than even Auchincloss' beloved Edith Wharton. Yet, Auchincloss manages to slow down sufficiently to describe what people physically look like, how they dress and what they eat, and the furniture and artwork in their homes. Auchincloss also has a great ear for dialogue which he combines with his wry sociological observations and brilliant understanding of the practice of law in his lawyer oriented novels; much as Maugham's training as a medical doctor continued to influence his perspective in his novels.  What Vidal admired about Auchincloss and I, too, is Auchincloss novels show money as a character in a novel.  It is there hovering and inhabiting people, and it a factor in how people treat each other. 

For those who believe sociologically-tinged novela of manners of late 19th through mid 20th Century New York have little to offer us in an increasingly diverse and highly wired world, I beg to differ.  We are currently in the throes of a vast and deep inequality, exacerbated by the decline of federal and abolition of state estate taxes, which taxes were originally championed by Theodore Roosevelt and Andrew Carnegie over a century ago. If the trends of the past nearly forty years are not politically reversed, we will continue to produce fiefdoms of a type that any enterprising young person outside the top 1% bubble would do well to learn how to navigate though by reading a few Auchincloss novels.  It is why I say to The Daughter I find Jane Austen novels have more "bite" than perhaps they did in mid-20th Century America, when worries about finding someone with enough money to stay out of the poorhouse seemed outdated and quaint. Today, young people think about someone who has money in a way that is more of a life raft than in my younger days.  Just start with the first line from Austen's iconic Pride and Prejudice and think about how young people view the world facing them today: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."*

I am glad I have come to Auchincloss, but again am sad I missed him when he was walking among us.  

* There is of course something Austen and Auchincloss do not dwell on, though they subtlety recognize in the background, which is settler-colonialism and imperialism.  This is why the late Edward Said's Culture and Imperialism is such an important sociological analysis of how our cultural cues and myths spring from colonial and imperial assumptions which form the social construct that is our lives in the United States and other first-modern world societies.  Said, for example, explained how Austen was aware of British slave trade activities in the Caribbean in her lesser known novel, Northanger Abbey.  As we, in 2018, search for meaning in an increasingly stratified economic trend,  this recent book, published this year, also reveals a "radical" side to Jane Austen that may have seemed a stretch to readers in, say, 1968, which it no longer seems now. In fact, the recent book's title, about the "secret" radicalism of Austen, shows what we would have seen as a stretch fifty years ago is now akin to a hidden treasure, once lost and suddenly found.  I also should say a word about Auchincloss' feminism.  He writes his women characters with tenderness and empathy as they navigate though societal strictures that were so prevalent and pervasive even in upper class contexts in the era in which he writes and was writing. This likely springs from the same sources as his adoration for Wharton and his insightful work on women novelists.  In this, Auchincloss reminds me again of Maugham, as a male writer who writes women characters as human beings first and foremost, not a different species.

A November 22 Thanksgiving

Every once in awhile, November 22 falls on Thanksgiving Day.  And for this Thanksgiving, I think of Phil Ochs' extended folk song, Crucifixion.  Phil Och's haunting song is about JFK, celebrity, iconic people, and the way society kills those who it often claims to adore.  Jack Newfield, in his book about RFK's last campaign, tells how Phil got a chance to sit with RFK and played this song for Bobby, and how Bobby teared up listening to Phil play. 

We lost so much with the murders of King and RFK, though I continue to say JFK died for our sins.  LBJ got through what JFK was never getting through, i.e. Civil Rights and Medicare, for starters, and knowingly and somewhat cynically used JFK's martyrdom to act boldly in a short term period.*  The white backlash was already coming--the Dallas newspapers heralding JFK's arrival had full page ads claiming JFK was a commie, black-loving traitor--and Barry Goldwater's wing of the Republican Party was on the rise.  Had JFK not been shot at, and went on to run against Goldwater in 1964, we would have seen a closer electoral contest than the LBJ-Goldwater contest.  Yet, the irony is that King and Bobby (and Phil Ochs) believed in the myth of JFK and wanted to do what JFK had doubts about and was not effective at getting up through the assassination.  I believe it is what brings so much passion, emotion, and sadness to the memories of King and Bobby.  It is also why, I think, even though neither King nor Bobby were killed as a result of a conspiracy--unlike JFK, likely killed by mobsters and possibly renegades from the FBI and CIA--the powers-that-be breathed a sigh of relief with King's and Bobby's murders, as Americans increasingly lost faith in the idea of change and the idea our government could ever be used to help people. After RFK's assassination and subsequent election of Nixon, the counterculture and economic royalty interests worked in an adversarial tandem to undermine what was good about New Deal policies and New Deal culture, and still act to block our path, as we see how neo-liberalism and reaction play together in Congress and in corporate media discourses and narratives.

With the rise of social media, and the way in which the bad trends of the past 55 years have reached this moment in time,  we also see many of our youth coming to believe we must act together to save our entire planet's future, and must act together to arrest and reverse inequality in our society.  We would do well as parents and grandparents to have more respect for our youth. If we want to take anything to move forward from any commemoration of this dark day in American history, let it be that we say to our youth how much we admire their vigor, passion, hope, and concern for our fellow humans and creatures living on our planet.  JFK, despite his health issues so carefully and deceitfully hidden, represented youthful vigor to my parents' and my generations.  It is what so many of us recall as much as anything about the man or his politics. Let us remember our own feelings in our own youthful days, and let us be the parents our children need and deserve. Rather than putting down our children and burdening them with debt as they try to improve themselves, let's finally begin to decide to give our children more opportunities, and applaud their wanting to step up and help us all. 

Other songs commemorating the day, out of, I'm sure, many others:  Tom Clay's mashup of Dion's "Abraham, Martin, and John" and "What the world needs now," and the Byrds' "He was a friend of mine."

* I was so pleased Caro woke up to this insight, as he began his decades long saga as an LBJ hater.  Robert Dallek's two volume biography from twenty to twenty five years ago had the correct perspective of LBJ, unlike Caro, who, again, finally woke up in the last two volumes of his biographical series.

The incompetence of corporate Democratic Party leadership

As the last election results trickle in, and the Blue Wave established in the House of Representatives, and also various statehouses, it is time for the Argument Among the Rational. This is the first installment.

First, let's let Ryan Cooper of TheWeek.com explain, as he has at least twice (here and here), why U.S. Senator from New York Charles "Chuck" Schumer is a walking disaster from any leadership or strategic standpoint.

Second, let's have a little fun and read Alexandra Petri's ironic, sarcastic take on criticism of Nancy Pelosi (Petri's column actually fooled Joe Conason, who is a great journalist, into thinking it was an anti-Pelosi piece--on FB, he wrote "A lot of men against Pelosi but...Alexandra Petri is reassuring"-- proving Conason must have read the headline and a part of the column on his phone while on the run, proving again how our comprehension abilities suffer in such circumstances.)

Now that we have had that fun, let's unpack what is really wrong with Nancy Pelosi as a leader of the Democratic Party at this moment in American history. Let's start with this article from Common Dreams, which shows Pelosi firmly in the pocket of medical insurance companies and Big Pharma. Let's recognize, too, Pelosi had literally nothing to do with the Blue Wave, and that it occurred despite her, not through anything she affirmatively did. Let's then read her statement, after corporate media called the House flip for the Democrats, where she promoted the idea of bi-partisanship with House Republicans when those Republicans promote policies and conduct themselves in a manner diametrically opposed to any sort of competent governance, where they show an abject lack of respect for the Commonweal with their white nationalist siren calls, and believe only in lock-step capitulation, not compromise. Just as bad, Pelosi is currently pushing a gimmick that there be a super majority in Congress before passing any legislation that, in any way, raises taxes on the bottom 80% of taxpayers. This is ridiculous because, with the House of Representatives comprising a now healthy Democratic Party majority, this would never happen for anything other than a payroll tax for....you guessed it, Medicare for All. Pelosi, in her statements and approaches to holding power over the years, exhibits an incompetence at political strategy with respect to galvanizing support for the best Democratic Party policies. She accepts the Overton Window as is, and tampers down most attempts to move that political discourse window back to a true center, where the majority of Americans actually are.

And note how all the corporate media and social media voices against Bernie Sanders on the basis of his being too old generally comprise the same people who do not want to speak that way about Nancy Pelosi--when Pelosi is a year older than Bernie.

Notwithstanding the above, I have no use for and have been critical of right wing demonization of Pelosi, and especially calling Pelosi a "socialist" or even "communist." But that does not mean I or others should refrain from criticizing Pelosi, or wishing there could be a coherent coalition among the Democratic Party Congressional majority to replace her as speaker. What needs to be recognized is, when push comes to shove, Pelosi is more in the pocket of corporate donors who continue to influence the leadership apparatuses of the Democratic Party, nationwide and in most States. Trump and the Republicans have publicly stated they are happy to have her back as Speaker, with Trump adding Republicans in Congress should vote for her for Speaker, assuming enough Democratic Party congresspeople said no. I have decided to root for this event because it would be at least exposing some of the truth of the very criticism I and other progressives have leveled at Pelosi.

The Alexandra Petri column in the Washington Post is typical in wanting to make the anti-Pelosi forces all about hating Pelosi because she is a woman. There are, however, fundamental strategic issues at stake and Pelosi has shown herself as incompetent (as has Schumer, we should definitely remind ourselves as at the top of this post). It is time more Americans, who are either Democratic Party members or progressives, recognize Pelosi's tenure as Speaker from January 2007- 2011was a lost opportunity to reestablish the Democratic Party as a party of the people. Pelosi's reign only re-enforced the Democratic Party leadership's fealty to wealthy donors who happened to support identity politics, or in their case, Human Resource Department politics.

A former high school mock trial student of mine caught up in Facebook's malestorm

This is an amazing article from the NY Times about Facebook's cynical and Trumpist style public relations campaign, which also shows us why corporate Human Resources liberalism is a problem that must be confronted and solved nearly as much as Trumpist Republicans.  

But as I read the article, I had a personal shock as I read the name Monika Bickert and then saw her photograph in the article.  

Monkia Bickert was my perhaps top Mock Trial High School student when I taught Mock Trial in the 1990s in Orange County, and more particularly Lake Forest, California.  Monika was a poised, brilliant and kind young woman who went from high school to Rice University on a volleyball scholarship, excelled as a student athlete there, and went to and graduated from Harvard Law School. She then went to the Justice Department handling I believe anti-trust matters.  I lost contact with her after she had graciously come to my book-reading for my novel in DC where she was living at the time while working for the federal government.  She is also the source of a story that came through her father, a now retired dentist, I believe, and his comment to an old friend who was a patient of his.  Monika had aced her Evidence Law class in her second year at Harvard, and the professor told her she was the best student he had ever taught in his Evidence class.  He asked if a parent was a lawyer because she knew down cold the rules of evidence.  She laughed and said, No, but the best law professor she ever had was her high school Mock Trial coach, who taught her the rules of evidence in a matter of weeks, and was so effective, she never forgot the rules.  Of course, when I applied for Chapman Law School as a professor when it opened in the late 1990s, I couldn't even land an interview. :)

I did produce a few top lawyers as a coach over the years I taught (1989-1999), including a Cornell Law grad who is a major partner at a top international law firm, and a possibly now former Department of Education lawyer who contacted me out of the blue just before we moved from CA to NM--and several other lawyers and at least one journalist, Matt Klickstein (see here and here for two recent books of his). When I introduced The Daughter to Matt when he was on his book tour for his oral history of Nickelodeon, he told her, "Your Dad is one of the greatest influences on me!  I still have the books he gave me from high school..." then turning to me, he said, "...and one day, I'm going to write that book on Kent State (the shooting)."  Matt's mother is a cousin of former Sixties activist, Todd Gitlin, so I figure I take a bow for my apparently having had a large influence. 

As The Wife says, whenever I say how much of a failure I've been, that I did influence a lot of young people over the years.  But it looks like Monika got caught up in the go-go world of the high tech industry, and perhaps should practice some of the anti-trust philosophy again....Facebook should also consult with David Brin to figure out how to better navigate openness and privacy rather than pursue misleading, corrupt, and anti-Semitic public relations.  Perhaps Facebook could begin to act like an online newspaper in terms of filtering but from what I see so far, a reliance on algorithms creates at least as much chaos and misdirection as it is supposed to stop.   

Strategy memorandum to Democratic Party officeholders and newly elected public officials

First off, Congratulations! This has been a better week than the corporate media pundits had predicted, and an election week which continues to unfold as votes are still being counted in places where Republicans actively tried to suppress voting; places like Florida, Georgia, Arizona, and other places. States which were largely Democratic Party oriented, which went for Trump in 2016, i.e. Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, elected Democrats again at least in the Statehouses (see here for an admittedly partisan summary). But now comes my not-so-humble advice for Democratic Party officeholders in Congress and Statehouses: 

The Democrats have a platform with which the majority of Americans agree. It is time for Democrats to stop acting as if right wingers or libertarians speak for "the heartland" or speak for "the average American." The "average"American now wants (1) at least $12 an hour minimum wage (and let's trumpet studies like this one); (2) Medicare/Medicaid for All; (3) higher taxes on rich people, just start with the 1% if anyone is confused (the average American is not) and corporations; (4) action on climate change such as at least cap and trade and promoting renewable energy; (5) free public college tuition for students attending those colleges; (6) instituting a robust infrastructure program to re-develop our nation, provide prevailing wage/union jobs to tens of millions of young people and yes, even immigrants, "legal" or otherwise, as we will need them once we realize how much work there is to be done, according to the Army Corps of Engineers; and (7) improving the power of unions (people don't know "card check" but we should talk about it, as we are now seeing polling data showing just over 60% of Americans like labor unions).*  And a majority of Americans want to be nicer than we are led to believe in corporate media presentations, as a majority of Americans support the DACA young people's quest to be official American citizens, a majority of Americans recognize the LGBT "community" consist of people in "our" families and friends (see here and here), and abortion is not something we should be making completely illegal or to block access (and a clear majority support federal funding for Planned Parenthood).   Oh, and sensible gun control (as a gun control advocate just defeated a Republican Congresswoman incumbent in Georgia!).

It is also vital, right now, for the new and re-elected Democratic Party governors and state legislators to put, front and center, electoral reform that makes voting a right, not a privilege, and specifically push for new election laws that promote open primaries, same day registration, and push back against discriminatory voter ID laws. And also to join the National Popular Vote initiative so that once the States which join the compact reaches 270 electoral votes, the number at which the Electoral College elects the president, the compact will mean the States' Electoral College results will go to the national winner. This way, we have reformed what is wrong with the Electoral College system without having to go through an amendment process. The system is malleable and can be therefore be reformed to stop second place presidential candidates from assuming the presidency.

The smart, strategic stance for you who are Democratic Party officeholders is to act boldly on the policies on which you ran, and show people you truly believe in those policies. For those who have been elected or re-elected to Congress, the fact the Senate remains in the hands of corporate fascists and racists, and the fact a traitor on behalf of Russia continues to occupy the White House, and continues to pursue an agenda beloved by fascists and racists, is less important than writing and agitating for legislation the majority of Americans want. It is vital for those who have been handed the megaphone of public office to work to force a change in the discourse on corporate television and radio, meaning it is important to agitate when one cannot legislate. If Democratic Party officeholders don't talk our issues, and get stuck in "outrages of the day" and other corporate cable news media narratives, Democratic Party officeholders are wasting an opportunity to truly help people in our nation. The turnout was high, which means expectations are high, too. Call on your constituents to stand up, show up at and lead rallies dedicated to the issues we Democrats believe in (not, as has happened in the past 30 years, sneaking into town and getting money from rich donors), and remind people we can all make a difference that helps our communities and our nation unite and do well by each other through our governmental policies and actions. 

The other day, when Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) stated she looked forward to promoting bi-partisanship, she showed us she is still unable to articulate and implement a competent strategy to deal with a Republican Party that promotes white supremacist nationalism and corporate feudalism, and a Republican Party that knows the majority of Americans disagree with their party's platform, which causes the Republicans to enact electoral laws, and close down polling places and places to register to vote, in order to deprive Democratic Party constituencies, mostly the poor and what we still call "minorities," of the right to vote.  The Republican Party is in the hands of people who seek capitulation, not compromise. The fact so many more Americans came out to vote in what are usually low-turnout mid-terms tells us many more Americans than ever are concerned about our nation and what sociologists would call "the commonweal."

The divide in our nation is not that "both parties have gone to extremes," as corporate media pundits love to say, and rich people and professional people tell me at gatherings in and out of my workplaces in which I have worked.  The divide is really a disconnect between what a majority of Americans want to see and the government officials who somehow get elected and enact policies with which the majority of Americans feel they have no voice--or ability to stop.  This week, Democrats have won in many places above what political pundits were saying as the pundits worried about tightening races against Republican officeholders. Now that many Democrats, though still not enough, have been elected, it is time for Democratic Party officeholders and newly elected Democratic Party officeholders to begin to act like they won. Confidence breeds confidence. Transparency and genuineness, and a belief that we can make change, is contagious in a positive way.  And making it easier to vote, and pushing for laws to increase the ability of people to form and maintain unions, will increase the power of Democratic Party constituencies, which happen to be a majority of Americans.  And following this strategy will give our nation's young people hope, and provide them an opportunity for activism to do well by our communities and our nation.  I even look forward to a debate about erasing all higher education debt for every American and agitating to overcome the school-to-prison pipeline and to support changes in our increasingly dominated private prison system (see my blog post on this subject).  But, please, Democratic Party officeholders and newly elected officials, be strong, be bold, and be confident--and you will find your constituents will be incentivized to push for you the way they came out to vote for you in these mid-term elections.

* As this New York Magazine article's headline and content shows, the Democratic Party paid a huge price in sitting by and watching private labor unions die.

A Bonhoffer moment for American Catholics, and the rest of us

Are we in a Bonhoffer moment?  That is the question set forth in this essay I have been led to from Facebook this morning.

For my Catholic brethren, I think the question comes down to one word: Priorities.  This is no time to elevate the cult of the fetus above everything else. And if the motivation of a member of the Catholic Church is to vote Republican in order to rail against same sex marriage, then please study up on all the things Jesus actually said--and tell us again why that should be the priority.

Having grown up in a Catholic neighborhood in New Jersey, I developed a soft spot for the church as an institution by the time I went to college. I have often thought, in this time of the church's current crisis of its own making, this is a time for good Catholics to return to the institution, if they believe any organized religion is worth saving. An institution needs people of good will to reform and regenerate it in a time of crisis. And such people should be ready to reform procedures and even some tenets no longer necessary, and which procedures or tenets pose an impediment to continued growth and even existence. For me, if I was a returning Catholic, I would support the call for priests to marry, and to teach the Catholic Church's own history with all its truly interesting twists, turns, and revanchist tendencies (particularly on abortion, which would surprise many modern Catholics; though homosexuality in Church doctrine has been more consistent, though not without some twists).  The Church should therefore approach its history and legacy with a humility the official Church claims to admire and worship in its Savior.  I believe, in doing so, the Church will find people far more interested in joining and staying in the institution.  It may even open up the Church to having members it previously made unwelcome, but who share the Church's best values.

For me, after serving as a president of a Jewish synagogue for nearly nine years, I have had my ups and downs about whether I believe American Judaism, as a set of organized institutions, is worth saving, considering nearly all of the Jewish American institutions have had an excessive focus on Israel and the Holocaust. In the past week, however, I have had to re-examine that proposition once again, as I saw how much the racist siren calls from Trump and the Republicans over the years have influenced the rise of anti-Semitism. It has led me to wonder if this is the time for Jews in America to stick together and re-join Jewish oriented institutions. On the other hand, as we have seen in modern Poland, where there is anti-Semitism with hardly any Jews in Poland, one wonders if the anti-Semitic worldview simply goes on without us being Jewish in any organized way--anyway.

For those who are not religious, or who belong to another religious institution, we should recognize we are all in a Bonhoffer moment. There are Republicans who see this moment, and have responded--see George Will, Max Boot, and others--but none that I see who currently hold office (example: former Republican Senator from Virginia, John Warner).  It is therefore the number reason to vote out Republicans wherever any of us are living in the United States today. For the Republicans in office have been enablers of Traitor Trump and Trump's siren calls that demonize immigrants, Muslim-Americans, African-Americans, Mexican-Americans, and now American Jews.