A story of white privilege and a story of oppressed African-Americans

This story brought tears of outrage to my eyes.  It is the story, which just occurred, of a five year old boy African-American boy berated into tears by a police officer--yes, African-American woman police officer--in the still racist, former slave state of Maryland. The boy's crime? The boy walked out of school, presumably to go home or just get out from a place already oppressing him.  All captured on video.

This hit home to me because, in 1998, or thereabouts, in the first ten days of The Son's first year in school, i.e. kindergarten, The Son decided, on his own, to walk out of the school during lunch recess-- and walked home. Luckily for The Son, we lived really close to the school at the time. He walked right up to our house door, rang the house doorbell, and, again, luckily for him, The Wife was home, as she was a stay-at-home mom at the time. The Wife brought The Son back to school, where the school administration apologized to her for not noticing till just that moment when she returned with him that he had left. Why did The Son walk out of the school? The Son, who had been brought up by my hippy wife, and was in a pre-school of Jewish hippies, unluckily landed a martinet for a kindergarten teacher--and he was miserable. 

The next day, I took time off from work to march into the school, and got immediate access to the principal. I introduced myself, said I was the lad's dad, and then said, "Look, this child is miserable. And I figure there are two types of kindergarten teachers: hippies who let the sunshine in, and martinets who drill rigor and order into the youngsters. I know there is already more than one kindergarten teacher here, and if there are two, the other is a hippie, right?" He nodded and laughed, but said he would not phrase it that way, though he understood my meaning. I continued, firmly and clearly, "Good! Now, I also figure, there is already a parent complaining to you about his or her kid having the hippie teacher teaching their kid to be free--and they don't want that. So, here's my proposal: I propose a Prisoner of War exchange, as we are dealing with compulsory education. My son goes to the hippie teacher and the martinet teacher gets the other kid." 

The principal immediately tried to assuage me with the usual professional-managerial class (PMC) language of why that can't be, which led me to immediately say, with my trial lawyer voice firm and strong: "Look, my Dad was a teacher, my sister is a teacher, my wife has her teaching credential, my wife's sister is a teacher, her brother is a teacher, and her mother is a teacher. My mom works at another elementary school here in this district. I know what I am saying--and you know what I am saying is correct. We need this prisoner exchange now. There's no wait and see on this. As I say, my son is miserable--and now I am angry." The principal sighed and said, okay. It will be done this week. And it was that very week, maybe, if I recall right, in about two school days.

Now, after one reads the linked-to story and compares it to my above story, does anyone who doesn't want to punch the police officers in the face here--not just sue them--not yet see how white privilege works?

The difference between what happened to this five year old boy in the former slave state of Maryland and my then five year old boy in then-largely white suburban Orange County, California is stark. The difference here should outrage every human being everywhere. What happened in the still racist, but former slave state of Maryland isn't ultimately about the individual police officers, though retribution and accountability against the officers are a must there. This videotaped incident is a real life example about how our society criminalizes African-Americans from the time they are children, and criminalizes and marginalizes poor children in general. And this incident is an example of how the police are precisely used to ensure this happens systemically. Punishment is the order of the day, even for a five year old African-American. This incident is on all of us, and I'm talking about white liberals as well as the usual suspects--so no, "To Kill a Mockingbird" tut-tutting.

This child has been terribly traumatized, and we should all feel shame and outrage that this happens so much and so often.

Bill Maher's cultural elitism reveals his own shallowness

Bill Maher uses the Grammys to make an argument about meritocracy, when the Grammys are like a fast food takeover of a culinary contest where only Burger King and McDonalds sweep the awards every year.  And it is not there was some Golden Age for Grammy Awards. There wasn't.  It was always a commercial venture when it began after WWII, as it was a continuation of a trend Aldous Huxley noted in Brave New World (1932), how music in our society would eventually be reduced to jingles equal to the advertising for products that appeared on commercial controlled radio. Maher is oblivious to Lawrence Levine's Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America and therefore oblivious to the mid 19th Century miners and farmers who could recite Shakespeare, sing arias from operas, hum Beethoven's sonatas, and the like.  

We have a modern comparison to prove my point: Compare Italian young people in the 1970s and American young people in 1970s. At that time, corporate power had not completely taken over radio and television in Italy. And it was not as if Italian public school education was so superior to American public school education. Yet, in that period, Gentle Giant and Van Der Graaf Generator literally sold out stadiums in Italy while the Eagles and Loggins and Messina had to resign themselves to playing in clubs in Rome or Florence. But then, in the 1980s, corporate power in media grew suddenly and completely so that, by the end of the 1980s, Italian young people were suddenly listening to much of what American young people were listening to. Coincidence? I think not. It was a fast cultural devolution, and one that can be largely traced to corporate power over media sources. 

I raised my children to appreciate classical music and we took them to concerts to see the excitement of orchestrated music. That was something I felt I had to do to avoid them being bombarded with the ubiquitous nonsense that surrounded them. The good news of the Internet is classical and progressive rock have been enhanced and have grown because the Internet is nearly worldwide and there are enough people who have woken or stayed awake, particularly young people, to hear music that is truly of a quality that merits the term "meritocracy."  Yeah, it is not the majority of what young people stream on Spotify, but it is certainly there and not going away.  The Rolling Stone article to which Maher refers, about the fact 90% of the downloads come from 1% of the artists, is a short article making that one point. It doesn't try to grapple with why, which would force the writer or the magazine to deal with the continued ubiquitousness of corporate power in media, and how most artists can upload music, but can't find an audience without mass marketing--or maybe someone can possibly find a way to go "viral," which is beyond rare.  That we know there is a corruption based in economic power is evident when we see on YouTube the young people who upload streams where they listen to Yes or Gentle Giant for the first time--and are amazed.  Andy and Alex are favorites of mine, but this young man at Wilburn Reactions is, too. 

But, Maher can't even begin to go there. He is now completely in old Boomer get-off-my-lawn mode, attacking the Kardashians and Paris Hilton with cheap jokes and making Ok, Boomer fun of generalized yearnings of young people--who see a whole bunch of Meagan McCains and other rich people in our media and think, "I would like to have their stardom"--and not caring a damn about young people being stuck with taking a bunch of AP Courses, the pressures of going to college and taking out loans, with no increase in the minimum wage, and no health security. Sure, Bill, the problem is kids wanting to be a Kardashian.  So like early 19th Century British elite who worried about the masses not getting married but shacking up because they could not afford the fee to the minister--and thinking it was a decline in morals, not a decline in the economic health and wealth among the working poor and benighted peasant farmers.  How so Bidenesque of you, Bill.  

I won't be surprised to learn, if Bill loses his perch at HBO, if he decides to undergo a sex change and try to get a gig with Whoopi on The View. He'd fit in perfectly with his cultural elitism. Yes, you can say I am a cultural elitist, but the difference is I think anyone and everyone can be taught to appreciate great music, film, or art, and what a great feeling it is to be touched by truly powerful and compelling music, film, or art.  

News flash to Bill and other benighted Boomers and Oldsters: The Grammys NEVER spoke to quality of music or anything that would be a meritocracy.  It was crap fifty and sixty years ago, and crap today. The Grammys, however, are emblematic of the dumb down in American culture, and further separation of highbrow from lowbrow. If we ever got to the time machine, and brought 19th Century working class people to our time, they would shake their heads wondering what the hell could be going on in 20th Century and 21st Century America to not appreciate Mozart and Rossini.  

Zack Snyder's "Justice League" vindicates MF Blog, the Sequel

The Wife and I watched, over Saturday and Sunday evenings, the four hour Zack Snyder's Justice League (ZSJL). Our verdict: Outstanding all around!! For me, I felt vindicated, as readers of this blog know I have consistent said the Warner Bros. suits should have shown more courage and respect for Snyder's vision. From what I have been reading on the web, my belief that it would take 15 to 20 years for people to start to respect Synder's narrative arc and direction of the DC films was too pessimistic. The redemption of Zack Snyder may already be occurring across much of the Internet. 

My more specific takeaways:

1. WB should fire--literally fire--every WB exec who was part of the decision-making to not back Snyder and then essentially fire Snyder when he asked to back away after his daughter's suicide. Then, rehire Snyder, Cavil, Fisher, Leto (the Joker ending was brilliant), and everyone else, reboot Aquaman the way it was supposed to be--an important message about humans killing the oceans as part of killing the planets with a much more serious Aquaman--, tell Patty Jenkins to get much more serious about WW's loss of faith in humanity and demand for economic, political, and cultural (gender) revolutions, and, this is not to be underemphasized, let Snyder finish the DC Universe oeuvre. 

2. Send some guidos to Scorsese's house and tell him to never comment on anything relating to the superhero film genre or film history ever again--or we break his legs. It is painful that so brilliant a director in Hollywood history is so ignorant of film industry history and how to evaluate genres outside of the films he directs.

3. The ZSJL restores the dignity of Aquaman, after the suits hired Joss Weedon to make him a big, dumb Palooka.

4. The ZSJL restores the vibrancy, poignancy, and power of Cyborg. The suits and Weedon simply airbrushed most of his character away and it was not understood just why he was even important. Here, Cyborg is key to the story.

5. I had become tired of superhero villains, finding them too cliched. However, here, I have to say Steppenwolf and Darkseid were the best villains I have seen in a long while. They make Thanos look like a whiny piker, which shocked The Wife and me. 

6. The ZSJL, as with Marvel films, should spend the money to get more solid soundtracks. We love the WW music every time she goes into battle, but otherwise, there was at most a "Field of Dreams" homage in the Superman returns scenes. I love the late James Horner's soundtrack in "Field of Dreams," which itself is borrowed heavily from Aaron Copland's "Our Town" and "Appalachian Spring," but really, Zack needs to hire Rachel Portman, who wrote the soundtrack music to "Nicholas Nickelby" or someone who knows how to musically convey emotional underpinnings within a narrative. And above all, don't just grab Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman, Randy Newman, etc.  

7. Critiques: I felt the first two sections of the six overall sections unfolded too slowly--and if there were edits, I would say, start there. There were also some clunky dialogue moments in three scenes  in the film, though, for the most part, the dialogue kept to the dignity of the moments portrayed. Finally, the CGI was better than WW84 and the WB suits/Weedon Justice League, which was a welcome surprise. 

8. Oh, and did I say, Fire every WB exec who had anything to do with falling for Marvel trolls and underestimating audience comprehension? Oh, yeah. I did. Well, Memo to WB: Do it. Fire them.  All of them.

The Daughter had called me last Thursday evening, after she watched it the day it premiered. She said, Dad, you were right about Zack Snyder. You must see the film. It's better than any of the Avenger films. The Wife said the same when I told her about The Daughter's last statement as the film credits rolled over a woman singing Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." As I say, Fire the WB execs--but definitely HIRE The Daughter, who agreed with me from the first time we saw rushes at Comic Con for the film six years or so ago.  It is not as if The Daughter agrees with me on too much, as we definitely have our differences (She loves the Apple TV "Dickinson" series, while I found it waaaay too historically structured for my tastes).  So, there's that. :). I think she speaks better than I do to younger people--which is not at all surprising, of course.  And I think she understands the significance of streaming television in promoting the visual arts.

Israel: The dream is over

This is a very long, but sobering, article by Nathan Thrall in the NYRB about the Palestine-Israel, and how we got here. It is also the story of a family who lost their 5 year old son in a tragic bus-truck accident. 

My only quibble with the history is that Zionism may have been corrupted from the beginning as a colonial enterprise, but that does not change the fact that it only grew because of European/Christian anti-Semitism combined with European nationalism. Support from my critique is in the article, where the Jewish-American writer says nearly 90% of Jews leaving Russia/Russian territories (Lithuania, etc.), including my grandmother and her mother, went to the US, not to Palestine, in the period from 1882-1914.  When Moses Hess wrote the earliest Zionist tract, "Rome and Jerusalem," in 1862, he was talking about Jews leaving because of growing violent anti-Semitism in Christian Europe, based within the rising nationalism.  Most Jews in Russia and Europe, however, were not interested in colonization of Palestine, and most would have rather stayed in Europe. Also, we know the American Reform Jewish denomination was adamantly anti-Zionist up through the 1930s. What changed was the rise of German Nazis and the overwhelming anti-Semitism directed against the European Jewish communities across all of Europe.  

The writer Thrall also quotes some nasty colonialist stuff from Herzl from Herzl's earliest days, which shifts my view somewhat of Herzl. However, Thrall doesn't take into account the bi-national state Herzl envisioned in the first decade of the 20th Century in Herzl's "New Old Land" novel that posits an Arab-Euro Jewish bi-national state. Still, the information provided in the history is so damning, I don't see how any American Jew who stands with Likud, or any liberal American Jew who believes in the two-state solution, can maintain the positions they may have.  As I have been saying for at least a decade, what has happened in Israel is the very definition of Judaism inside Israel has returned to its land-based roots, and American Jews refuse to acknowledge that we were raised in a rabbinic tradition of a universalist, non-state or non-land based Judaism. Our sense of Judaism is therefore in conflict with the land-based Judaism, and our moral sense arising from our universalist Judaism should be repelled by the land-based (and therefore nationalist) Judaism that Israeli society, politics, and culture promotes.

For me, to paraphrase John Lennon from a different context, "The dream is over." Israel is a state that is now institutionally structured for apartheid, and the quotes from current Israeli political figures in the long article proves that point. It is why I now oppose all military and economic aid to Israel. I believe the US military-industrial interests are merely supporting Israel as it is now firmly part of the American Empire. And I believe the American Evangelical Christians support Israel as part of their messianic delusions and as part of their promotion of white Euro-heritage supremacy. On the other hand, I continue to believe Herzl would be appalled, but now have to say later Herzl would be appalled, and there was a basis for millions of Jews around the world to support Zionism in the period of the 1930s through 1960s. That the support was itself misplaced to the extent there was always a colonialist element driving Israel's growth, but the anti-Semitism in the 1930s and 1940s was so outrageously violent, with the "Final Solution," that European Jewry, and even Jewry around the world, was on the line if the US had not intervened in World War II against the Axis Powers.  

Meanwhile, I am completing my shiva for Israel when I purchase and complete AB Yehoshua's newly translated into English novel, The Tunnel.

UPDATE: March 22, 2021: Mark Braverman in Tikkun lays out something highly similar, opening with Thrall's London Review of Books article about Israel, which I missed.  

Zoey The Dog, December 2003-March 2021: A Noble Dog

Yesterday, Zoey The Dog fled her mortal coil. She was 17 1/4. Zoey was an extraordinary dog from the start of her life with us in 2005 through her last breath. Zoey, a French Poodle/Cocker mix (Cockapoo, as sometimes called), had been a rescue dog who, in the words of rescue groups, rescues the people who take her in. I will always remember how we picked her up in Chula Vista, CA at a person's home, where, shockingly to us, Zoey was being kept in a small cage. She jumped out to greet us, and nearly ran out ahead of us as we returned with her to our car. Her name then was Noelle, and I said, Too goyish. Although The Daughter insists she named the dog, I distinctly recall I did--as I named her after the Nickelodeon show The Daughter watched, which was a character played by Brittney Spears' younger sister, Jamie. I liked the name, Zoey, and preferred the "y" (sometimes it is spelled Zoe) to make clear how to pronounce the name. In any event, Zoey happily jumped--lots of jumping for most of her life--into the car's back seat between The Son and The Daughter, and we drove back to Poway, about 45 minutes away. Every once in awhile, I would look in the rear view mirror to see how the dog, so quiet, was doing. Each time, I saw the dog was looking forward, content, and never once did the dog look back. I said to myself, I think this dog has found her servants. 

Recently, as the vets would tell us Zoey has so many ailments--including at least two cancers, kidney disease, plus a very bad heart that made surgeries impossible--there would be nothing to do if she collapsed, which she did yesterday. Hearing that each time we took her in, I would respond Zoey will find a way to 18. I would then say, when Zoey reaches 18, I will take her to the County Clerk to register her to vote. I figure she is at least as smart, and definitely more kindly than a third of Boomer voters. Our other joke, when she was younger, was in the context of how, when taking Zoey on walks in and around Poway, CA, people loved to come up to Zoey and pet Zoey. When regaling ourselves back home, I would imitate Zoey, and say to the family, "I'm Zoey! Want to feel better, stranger? Pet me." "Want to be happy? Pet me." And then I would ask Zoey, "Zoey, how would you solve the problems in the Middle East?" And Zoey would answer, "Pet me!" It remains my only regret Zoey was not called upon as a diplomat to solve the problems in the Middle East.

The photo below is from the morning we left CA for NM in June 2017. At the time we had left CA in June 2017, Zoey's CA veterinarian had worried her heart murmur was getting worse, and she would not last too long in NM. Instead, we found NM rejuvenated her. The video below is from Haynes Park in Rio Rancho, NM, about a year later as she began to slow down a bit. The video features my voice with that high pitch one automatically uses with babies and doggies--until the very end of the video, when I say "Alright!"  The Wife and I were so happy Zoey was still able to run. It was only in the past year when Zoey finally showed her age, and she could no longer take walks, being relegated to the back yard where she slowly could walk around before going back to her bed to sleep. In dog years, Zoey lived to just past 120, which, in Jewish lore, was the age of Moses when he passed, and therefore an age of greatness. 

The Daughter calls Zoey "A noble dog."  Indeed, she was a noble dog.  Zoey The Dog is greatly missed, but lovingly remembered.  

It is more than constitutional paralysis which ails the United States as an operating republic

I consider Corey Robin one of the most brilliant political philosophical minds of our time. His book on reactionary/conservative thinking over the past 250 years is must reading, and, from reviews I have read, he understands Clarence Thomas better than most commentators. However, this article in The New Yorker is blandly conventional in blaming constitutional paralysis as the most significant element for our nation's challenges, and too sanguine about the facts regarding Trump's reign and its consequences.

I agree with Corey Robin to the extent he appears to be saying the Senate is the injury beyond the insult of the Electoral College.  I disagree with his big example of Republican and institutional pushback against Trump when he compares what happened with Trump's NDAA veto and previous presidents who vetoed the NDAA. Robin misses the factual differences between previous presidential vetoes and Trump's. Carter wanted a particular nuclear carrier spending plan removed, and got it removed after his veto.  Reagan wanted more power to control negotiations with the Russians, and got it. Clinton wanted to avoid a violation of the ABM Treaty over a proposed missile defense of one of the US protectorates. Bush II's and Obama's vetoes were similarly policy based.  Trump's stated reason for his veto was his carping about the symbolic gesture of renaming military bases named after slaveholders and clear racists--and in the context of Mitch McConnell and other Republicans worried about Trump's desperateness following his re-election loss.  Context therefore matters far more in this instance than Robin's essay assumes.

To read Robin's article, one would think Trump made very little difference in policy making.  However, when we look at what Trump's administration "accomplished," despite the paralyzing "checks and balances," we must start with Trump's various executive actions--where Congress' structural paralysis allows for that type of executive focused governance.  On immigration, student debt collection, and environmental de-regulation, Trump did a lot of damage to our nation and our planet.  And Trump worked effectively with Republicans in Congress to stack the courts, which is a significant structural oriented change.  

As for defining Fascism in the context of Trump, we should look at Jason Stanley's (Yale political philosopher prof who wrote "How Fascism Works" in 2018) definition of fascism. Stanley defines fascism, saying, "One of the hallmarks of Fascism is the ‘politics of hierarchy’—a belief in a biologically determined superiority—whereby Fascists strive to recreate a ‘mythic’ and ‘glorious’ past…(while) excluding those they believe to be inferior because of their ethnicity, religion, and/or race.”  

I believe it is factually indisputable that Stanley's definition applies to how 40% of Americans and 50% of the senate think--and why we should be concerned that the Republicans have a strong chance to win back the White House in 2024 through the Electoral College. Our nation has had what the late sociologist, Bertram Gross, called "Friendly Fascism," for much of the post 1960s period in US history.  In this context, it is useful to quote Mussolini, who gave a working definition of fascism in the early 1930s: “It is in the corporation that the Fascist State finds its ultimate expression…According to the Fascist conception, the corporation is the organ which makes collaboration systematic and harmonic…”. One can say Mussolini's definition of "corporation" does not quite cover our modern conception of corporations. However, the tendency of corporate executives in the US to side with authoritarians, whether here or in China, is unmistakable--and again not one that provides me with any sense of security.  

Finally, Fascism's ugly side continues to grow in our nation, but less because of what Robin sees as our governmental and corporate leaders being paralyzed.  He seems to back into an assumption that Biden and the corporate Democrats want to stop fascism, but are somehow powerless to do so. For anyone believing that, let's consider Buenaventura Durruti, a Spanish anti-Fascist, who said in 1936:  "No government fights fascism to destroy it. When the bourgeoisie sees that power is slipping out of its hands, it brings up fascism to hold onto their privileges." When we consider Durruti's advice, we who favor progressive policies should be outraged at how the outgoing Democratic leadership in Nevada behaved when the progressive slate prevailed last weekend. We now know how Democratic power brokers admitted to the two authors of the new book on the Biden campaign, "Lucky," how they really thought they could decide to let Trump win in 2020 rather than let Bernie win the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. 

I find myself less and less sanguine about the prospects of the American experiment, partly for what Robin sees as constitutional paralysis, but as much if not more the propaganda the majority of our nation's people have ingested since the start of the Cold War.  For that, I find Jodi Dean's books of the past decade a more reliable guide to what ails us.