Friday, August 18, 2017

The liminal redemption of Donald Trump


I believe strongly in redemption, the idea that anyone can redeem himself or herself with the good of society no matter what evils he or she may have done. Anyone. This includes racists and Donald Trump.The things we do, little things that we may not think about, big things we give a lot of thought to, affect other people and radiate in ways we don't understand fully. We call such things liminal, the confusing, often unconscious transition point between acting and not acting, a doorway between "Someone should do something about that" and "I am someone."

Can this liminal redemption happen? I don't know, but the butterfly effect is real. It's given us the ends of the Soviet Union, American institutional slavery, and South African Apartheid. It's given us smaller, more personal things like the cousin who checks in to make certain you're okay, the employer who gives you a second chance, the busy driver who helps you cross the street. These small acts of compassion demonstrate our humanity. They are what we must do to build us up against those who would tear us down.

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

It's gone too far

The past couple weeks have been maddening, chaotic, not only personally but, more importantly, nationally. It can't be mistaken that I'm in any way a Trump supporter or apologist, but I couldn't have wished on him the clusterfuck he has brought on himself.

I don't think I have to explain much of anything about what happened this past weekend in Charlottesville, VA. By now just about everyone knows at least the basic facts: that an event calling itself Unite the Right obtained a permit for a march on Saturday, ostensibly to protest the removal and relocating of some local statues to the Confederacy. That the Friday night before, various groups there for the march held a pre-march march through the campus of the University of Virginia, chanting slogans like "You will not replace us," "Jews will not replace us," and "Blood and soil." That this encouraged more counter-protesters to appear the next morning; that the rally was declared an illegal assembly after there were violent outbreaks that included beatings of counter-protesters by Unite marchers, in one infamous instance using poles (warning: not only a brutal scene but very annoying ads to get through for the video). That in one related instance a helicopter crashed a few miles from the rally, for as-yet-unknown reasons, killing the two VA State Troopers inside; but not before, tragically, a car driven by a rally attendee rammed into several groups of counter-protesters, injuring nearly twenty and killing one.

At least it used to be that just about everyone would know that back when we had three channels with nightly news. With innumerable sources claiming to be collectors and disseminaters of what they call "news," some of it legitimate, most of it conjecture if not outright wishing, a reasonable commentator can't assume everyone is up to speed in the same way. Trump, famously, is primarily a consumer of a single network that provides news entertainment and a few websites, most of which present him in as positive a light as possible. Most recently, we have learned that he may be given a twice-daily set of memos detailing nothing other than "screenshots of positive cable news chyrons..., admiring tweets, transcripts of fawning TV interviews, praise-filled news stories, and sometimes just pictures of Trump on TV looking powerful."

Which may be why Trump reported in his initial statement on the violent events as the deaths and injuries were something that could be blamed on "many sides," a statement that defies analysis. We don't say that a mugger or an arsonist has "a side." Beyond his version of events, he doesn't have a side for having done what he did that we need to pay attention to. Barring exceptional circumstances, robbery and arson are bad acts unto themselves, not to be addressed as if they have a "side." Similarly, assault and intimidation by self-identified Nazis and KKK members against unarmed protesters don't have a side. 

If we had thought Trump had reached his nadir, then we weren't prepared for what was to come. Having made a further statement on Monday making more explicit his condemnation of racism, naming "the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups," on Tuesday night he made what one supposes he hoped would be a final word on the subject. Naturally, being Trump, it will not be. At least not by commentators and, one hopes, by Republican lawmakers. 

His comments were nothing less than offensive and accusatory. “I’m not putting anybody on a moral plane,” he began, before going on to do exactly that. In the ensuing days somehow the counter-protesters had become armed attackers. “You had a group on one side and group on the other and they came at each other with clubs – there is another side, you can call them the left, that came violently attacking the other group." That defies verified videos of the events, although Trump explained to reporters he had watched videos "closer than you did." 

He made the further argument, "You had people that were very fine people on both sides...Not all those people were neo-Nazis, not all those people were white supremacists. Many of those people were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E Lee." There is an argument to be made that not everyone who joined the National Socialists believed in their policies or their actions. That argument can be made for members in the 1930s and 1940s. Not for members in 2017. There is no parallel argument to be made, by the way, for members of the Ku Klux Klan at any period of history. Both groups and their auxilliaries have, by their words and actions , put themselves beyond the scope of society, and while their right to exist and to present their "side" is protected by the Constitution, it is only so long as it is done peacefully, not with guns, poles, and torches, and certainly not with hurtling cars. So far as the comment about people there to protest the statues' removal, yes, they are probably "fine people," but it isn't their argument about the statue that's at contest here, it's their actions of rushing the counter-demonstrators, hitting them, and intimidating them with guns and ersatz riot gear intended to make them look like official police. 

We are at an important moment in history. Trump and the thirty-five percent of Americans who somehow continue to think he is doing a job worth approving are at the end of their influence on the important policies of American governance. I've often pointed out that more people believe in ghosts than believe in Trump and we don't allow them to run the country. 

Trump has reached his sell-by date; in fact, in the fact that it's cost at least three Americans their lives, he's passed it. The sooner he resigns (preferable because we don't want the martyrdom that might come with impeachment), the sooner the reconstruction of American political life can begin. I don't like Mike Pence as the president, I think in some ways he'll be worse than Trump. But he'll be consistent, he'll play by the rules. And he'll know not to confuse self-proclaimed neo-Nazis and members of the KKK with voters whose endorsement he wants. 

Sunday, August 13, 2017

a little hope

I have, as some might imagine, much to say about the burning dumpster fire which is the situation in Charlottesville, VA, and I will say it. But today, as I've been reacting and texting, I came across a short ad that fills me with hope.

I say an ad because it's a trailer for a BBC show. Amazing Humans, and the episode is subtitled "Every Child Deserves the Right to Play." It chronicles a group of people who had an idea to help, tried it, were absolutely stunned at the realization they had no clue how they were going to accomplish it, and discovered that being there is sometimes all the planning you need. Watch it.

Saturday, August 5, 2017

My Sam Shepard Story

With all the mishigas of the past week, national and personal, I've held back on this, my Sam Shepard story. This was, maybe, twenty years ago. I was working for a company  that parceled me out like a paid friend to a number of people, most of whose caregivers needed some kind of time off. One of them was a retired farmer named Lamoine. His wife needed three hours a week to herself on Thursdays for shopping and sociability. One afternoon I arrived and there was a red truck with Minnesota plates in the drive, and a big red lab in the bed. I said, "Hey, bud!" to the dog and he came to the gate wagging and sniffing my face and mouth. We bonded real quickly, and I went over to the house and knocked on the door. Sam Shepard opened it. 

Now I knew he was buying land from Lamoine but hadn't expected he would be there visiting. I stuck out my hand and said, "I'm Bob." He stuck out his and said, "I'm Sam Shepard." Now at this point there were several different things I could have said: "Buried Child. Wow No one saw that coming."; "Fool for Love; what the hell was that?"; even, "I saw King Kong, Jessica has great tits." But I ended up saying what struck me right then and there. 

"Wow. Sam, you got bad teeth."

Because he did. His whole top row of front teeth were set back like a firebreak line of trees to protect his palate; he wore false teeth when he acted or was in public. He smiled a little and covered his mouth. We got along okay.


Cut to a week later and my wife and I are in a nearby WalMart. It starts raining and we're wandering around the place, not looking anymore for anything in particular. And suddenly Sam Shepard is standing in front of us. I went up to him and said, "Hi, Sam." And he put out his hand and said, "Bob, right?" He had his falsies in. I introduced him to my wife and we talked for a little bit about the area, the horses he planned to stable on what used to be Lamoine's land. And then the rain let up and he said, "Well, gotta go." We said goodbye and wandered around a little longer because we didn't want to seem to be following him. 


A few minutes later we were checking out and the cashier was all agush, pointing to another cashier a few rows over, saying, "She just checked out Sam Shepard!" And we said, "Oh, yeah, Sam. Nice guy. Bad teeth."