Read it!

It is riveting, to say the least about it. It is the most shocking document about the actions of a U.S. president ever written. It cannot be discounted as political hype. It has to be read, all forty-five pages of it. It is a tale told in detail about how our country nearly lost its democratic chops. Read it!

The story, our story, begins with stark simplicity …

 “The Defendant, DONALD J. TRUMP, was the forty-fifth President of the United States and a candidate for re-election in 2020. The Defendant lost the 2020 presidential election.”

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts, not even “alternative facts.” A federal grand jury alleges that Donald J. Trump attempted to overthrow the peaceful transfer of power on January 6, 2021. They brought four charges against the former president:

1.   DONALD J. TRUMP, did knowingly combine, conspire, confederate, and agree with co-conspirators, known and unknown to the Grand Jury, to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified by the federal government.

2.   DONALD J. TRUMP, did knowingly combine, conspire, confederate, and agree with co-conspirators, known and unknown to the Grand Jury, to corruptly obstruct and impede an official proceeding, that is, the certification of the electoral vote, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1512(c)(2).

3.   DONALD J. TRUMP, attempted to, and did, corruptly obstruct, and impede an official proceeding, that is, the certification of the electoral vote. (In violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1512(c)(2),

4.   DONALD J. TRUMP, did knowingly combine, conspire, confederate, and agree with co-conspirators, known and unknown to the Grand Jury, to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate one or more persons in the free exercise and enjoyment of a right and privilege secured to them by the Constitution and laws of the United States—that is, the right to vote, and to have one's vote counted.

For those of us who do not spend a lot of our free time reading court documents, this is an easy one to read. Although there are unindicted co-conspirators, the charges rest solely on former President Trump. Obviously, he pled not guilty.

Many dispute the charges, based on desire, opinion, or hope, but not the facts. The voting process was disputed in 60-plus cases across the country and found wanting. Those responsible for bringing false claims are unnamed co-conspirators.

The trial that ensues from the formal accusation will be one of the most important in our nation’s history. It will be fought with every legal nuance available to either side of the argument, as it should be. In the end, it is the job of the prosecutor to prove that Trump did what is alleged. Until a jury finds he is guilty of any of the four felonies, he is presumed innocent.

One segment of the indictment states clearly that the former president’s statements about a lost election are protected by his First Amendment rights, and the charges do not challenge that right. He is charged for what he did, not what he said, or how he said it.

Why should we average Americans get worked up over these allegations? Do they really have an effect on our lives? Of course, they do if we like the idea of a democratic government and our ability to elect our own leaders.

Two weeks after the Department of Justice indicted the former president on four serious counts, he was indicted again by a Grand Jury in Fulton County, Georgia for violation of Georgia’s RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization) law. The Georgia RICO law is much stronger than the Federal act. In addition, the Grand Jury named eighteen co-conspirators with similar charges. Should we get worked up over these allegations too? Well, yes. Again, as always, the person charged is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

 

The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, conducted in June 2023, found that only one in ten U.S. adults give high ratings to the way democracy is working. Forty-nine percent of Americans do not think that democracy is working. If half of its citizens do not think the political system is working, can it be far from a failed state?

In a June 2023 article in The Atlantic, Peter Turchin discussed his extensive research on failing states. He and his staff looked at the history of hundreds of states during the last one thousand years and evaluated them on several criteria. His article, America is Heading Toward Collapse, identifies two categories shared by most failed nations: “The first is popular immiseration—when the economic fortunes of broad swaths of a population decline. The second, and more significant, is elite overproduction—when a society produces too many superrich and ultra-educated people, and not enough elite positions to satisfy their ambitions.”

That describes the current situation in the U.S., doesn’t it? Wealth has moved to the few oligarchs while the middle and lower wage earners still struggle with inflation and stagnation of wages in the last two decades and a lack of conspicuous consumption funds. All along we hear the clamor from the non-urban areas about unfamiliar and unwanted cultural change by the educated elite.

And then there is the Congress and the state legislatures, whose members are all fighting for the support of the primary voters and ignoring the wishes of their contingent of moderates and independents. In state after state, legislators are passing laws related to abortion, gun safety, and gender identity that most of their constituents do not support; all the time, they seemingly ignore inflation, wages, healthcare, climate change, and other kitchen-table issues.

In a nation divided, a new CBS News/YouGov poll found that 53% of likely GOP primary voters considered Trump a source of truth compared to 42% for religious leaders.

If one reads the indictments against the former president, nearly 40 pages outline the actions that led to Count 1. The story is almost hour by hour over a period of months, with supporting documentation. It will be hard for any lawyer to argue successfully for a “not guilty” verdict. The evidence, if true and provable, tells the story in detail of a deliberate effort by a cabal of associates trying to change the outcome of the 2020 election.

But polls show that about half the country believes Trump and not the evidence. That is a serious situation but more serious is the fact that about half the country does not consider the charges serious enough to not vote for him.

Too much evidence, for me at least, points to vital institutions losing the respect of the nation. When Congress is considered a failure, the courts are not trusted, attempts to overthrow the peaceful transfer of power are ignored or considered peaceful demonstrations, wealth moves to the few and capitalism is questionable as an effective economic system, one must consider the possibility of a failed state. The last time that happened we endured a Civil War.

We can do better.

What are the first three things you would do, if you were in a position to do them, to save our democracy?

 

 

Commencement!

 Ego quasi bonam orationem![i]

That time of year again, commencement time. Some call it graduation time,[ii] but it is not. Commencements can be held on verdant lawns, under huge tents, in school gyms transformed into halls of learning, or online, I suppose.

How many of us remember the admonitions of our own high school or college ceremonies? Who remembers who spoke those words of wisdom? Most do not, for good reasons. Too many were tenured professors getting in that last lecture, or movie stars trying to be funny or overly serious, well beyond their basic assignment. Few succeeded. Even more, went on too long. There were few nuggets.

Do not get me wrong. I like a good speech. YouTube makes it easy to listen to them as many times as you want, if you’re so inclined, except for those before talking films or TV.

Wouldn’t it be great if we had a recording of Washington’s Farewell Address, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, Patrick Henry’s “Give me Liberty or Give me Death,” Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, or Douglas’ Debates?

Churchill couldn’t give a bad speech. Jon Meacham may have given the best eulogy of all time for the funeral of George H. W. Bush. Lyndon Johnson roused Congress and the nation to approve the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 with a speech that stirred the soul of America and reminded us of our reason for being.

Kennedy’s inaugural set the world on a new path. MLK’s “I Have a Dream” changed the way we see others. Reagan soothed the nation’s grief after the deaths of the Challenger crew, of whom he said they had “slipped the surly bonds of earth” to “touch the face of God.” Good speeches show us the truth, call us to be our better selves, and give us hope.

Commencement orations follow a well-honed pattern: thank the faculty for the invitation to speak, congratulate the graduating class, wonder aloud why they were chosen for such an important event, and give a couple of admonitions for success in the future. At the end of the address, the question “Why me?” proves the most prescient.

Each year, about this time, I listen to commencement speeches, searching for the nugget that propels us to new heights. I don’t know why I do it. I don’t tell many outside of my family; it’s a bit quirky. It’s not normal. There was a time when Time Magazine summarized the best college commencement speeches for you. Now, YouTube brings the world of words to you in a flash.

This year there was a theme for so many speeches. Whether in jest or in all seriousness, the failures of the past two or three generations were brought into focus. Speakers went on and on about how we and our compatriots had messed up the world; famine is widespread, the nation is divided, too many homeless, the haves and have-nots divide widens, and racial tensions expand. Simply said, we suck at what we do; we leave the kids a mess.

Tom Hanks spoke to the 2023 graduates at Harvard College. Looking out at them he declared, “Help is on the way.” Let’s hope he is right, or we will descend to depths that put our democracy at peril.

America is an experiment, still being tested. Survival rests on a tenuous devotion to its institutions. Tear down the institutions and you lose a free country. A small minority wants to turn the nation into a white nation, and blame their woes on immigrants; they don’t buy into “Et Pluribus Unum.” That is not a rant, it is fact. Let us hope that help is on the way.

We have cable TV organizations that pretend to be news organizations but are in fact mouthpieces for their favorite political party. Let’s hope that help is on the way.

The Supreme Court refuses to hold itself to the high ethical standards that the rest of the judiciary must embrace. Let’s hope that help is on the way.

State legislatures gerrymander election districts to prevent minorities or those of opposing parties and beliefs from proportional representation. Washington, when he left office, warned us that the worst enemy of government was loyalty to party rather than nation. Is help on the way?

We, the older generations haven’t grown backbone enough to say, “Enough is enough, stop with the destruction of our democracy, already.” Jon Meacham, in his talk at the 2022 commencement at Williams College, reminded the graduates that democracy requires us to see other people as neighbors, not as adversaries, if it is to survive. Meacham’s nugget was that success isn’t living the good life, but living a life well lived.

With luck, the commencement addresses of the next few years will be more upbeat, telling the world that America saved itself, and that help came in time. I look forward to hearing those speeches.

We need change. It’s the kids’ turn to rouse the nation and remind us what we stand for.

That is not a speech, it is our prayer.

Non est oratio. Est oratio nostra.[iii]

 

 

[i] I like a good speech – the Latin for speech is essentially the same as the Latin for prayer. The Latin gets your attention quicker.

[ii] Maybe “graduates” is easier on the tongue than “commencers.”

[iii] With apologies to Mr. Connor and Graham Newell - Some will know of whom I speak.

Trash

 It’s time to talk trash. It isn’t reserved for sports or neighborhood disputes. It’s serious stuff. Where I grew up there was trash and there was garbage. That’s all. Garbage went into a can out by the garage and trash went to the dump. Once a week the garbage man collected the garbage and every week or so people took their trash to the dump. It was easier then. It was more enjoyable then, too.

 

Radio stations received dozens of new records each week. Do you remember records? DJs at WDEV listened to the records and decided which were good enough to play on air, and which should go to the dump. We waited in anticipation each Saturday morning for the station’s highest-rated show: “Music to Go to The Dump By.” That was when they played the records they were sending to the dump.  The music was awful; we loved it!

 

SB 1383 was one of 770 new laws that took effect in California on January 1, 2022. Seven-hundred-seventy new laws in one year make the argument for less government, but no, somebody had to mess with the garbage vs trash vs organics in our lives. Not much has changed since childhood. We’re back to taking the garbage out again. They don’t want us to use garbage disposals anymore. Now we must compost. It’s the law. Someone proposed that we should consider composting dead people in the future.

 

We have had black, blue, and green disposal cans for some time. Black cans for trash went out every week. The blue can for recyclables went out every week. The Green can for organics, i.e., grass, leaves, branches, and the like went out every other week. The compost law changed the cycle. The black still goes out every week. The green can now goes out every week, and we must remember to take out the blue can every other week. If we are supposed to recycle a lot, don’t you think the blue can should be full every week and the black can with trash nearly empty and not worth taking out every week? Nope! Now it’s the green that must go out every week. We must compost.

 

Here is the thing, though. Now we must always have a small garbage can in the kitchen, lined with a compostable bag. When it is full it is taken out to the garbage can; sorry, green organic can. Since we don’t have that much garbage, most weeks, that big green organic can goes out to the street with one very small compostable bag in it. They, you know who they are, tell us that they don’t want compostable garbage in the landfill dumps. The logic is elusive.

 

The big green can is picked up once a week by a big blue truck with mechanical arms that grabs it and raises it to the top of the truck and empties it. That truck gets two to three miles per gallon if it was built before 2014, or seven miles per gallon after that. They, you know who they are, tell us that the average truck makes 1,000 stops per day and drives 130 miles per day. Those numbers seem high and maybe even unrealistic, but they published the numbers, so let’s go with them. All that adds up to 40+ gallons of fuel at $4.90 per gallon; that’s about $1,000 per week. The driver earns $30 per hour or $1,200 per week. Let’s assume that a new garbage truck sells for $300,000 and it lasts ten years; that’s $580 per week. So, that little green bag of garbage in the big green can picked up by the big blue truck costs nearly three thousand dollars weekly. That doesn’t include the costs of the new composting sites to which the little green bag is delivered. An engineer or an accountant might find fault with the math, but it is within the conceptual margin of error, so I’m sticking with it.

 

I’m the first to suggest that we do all we can to save the planet. Let’s get rid of the smog caused by internal combustion engines. Let’s stop using coal to produce electricity. Let’s put solar panels on all the new houses and find a way to make EV cars cheaper. I’m flummoxed about why compostable garbage can’t be put in the trash can. It really won’t hurt the landfill, and it won’t require starting up a compost department staffed with more people and more technology.

 

Somehow, I get the feeling that a well-meaning person decided to use a backyard composter one day and then decided that everyone should do the same. That’s how so many new laws begin. Somebody gets an itch and suddenly you have seven-hundred-seventy new laws in one year, many of which belong on the trash heap of …

 

Nostalgia has a strong grip on people. I kind of miss “Music to Go to The Dump By.”

 

 

Needs vs. Wants!

 I love oversimplifications. They encourage generalizations. That was one.

In an item I read the other day, a chap from Norway compared his life there to what it was like when he lived in the U.S. for a few years. He noted that he had had heart bypass surgery in Norway that kept him in the hospital and rehab for a few weeks, for which there was no charge. Not unusual in most countries. He complained that they billed him for the parking garage.  

He opined that his government provides what people need. People then pay for what they want beyond their needs. A gross generalization, but the point is made.  

The end of the year is a time for thinking about the old, contemplating the new, and imagining the what-could-be, a time for generalizations. 

Wander with me as I wonder. 

What if everyone in our country had access to great healthcare?  

• Would families with low-income sleep better at night because they know they and their kids would be treated well if they got sick 

• Would homeless people get the mental health care they need, would it lessen their stress 

• Would we not be ranked 35th in child mortality 

• Would we live longer; our average age would not be declining as it did again this year 

• Would medical care not be a political lightning rod 

What if anyone could get a college education, without going into debt?  What if those who wanted to learn a trade could do so without going into debt? 

• Would more people be better educated 

• Would minorities and low-income people have greater access to advanced education 

• Would more people become well-trained craftspersons to build and repair our buildings and equipment, make our machines, or run our factories  

• 
  

What if everyone had a decent place to live? 

• Could more families afford decent places to call home 

• Would fewer people be forced to sleep on the streets and in camps around our towns and cities, freezing to death in the cold 

• Could social workers be more effective if their clients were not worrying about where to sleep each evening 

• 
  

What if everyone had as much healthy food as they needed? 

• Would fewer children go to bed hungry or go to school undernourished 

• Would families be healthier if they had real food rather than relying on processed food 

• Would malnutrition be an issue in our country 

• 
  

What if children didn’t fear for their lives when they went to school?  

• Could parents send their kids to school each morning without wondering if they would ever see them again. 

• Could fire drills in schools be the norm rather than active shooter drills 

• Could guns on school campuses be a thing of the past 

• 
  

What if we all had cleaner air to breathe? 

• Maybe respiratory illnesses would decrease drastically 

• We could see the mountains surrounding our cities 

• Clouds of dark smog wouldn’t cover our view of the sky 

• 
  

What if everyone had access to clean water in their homes? 

• Maybe families could wash dishes without boiling the water first  

• Maybe families would not have to brush their teeth and shampoo their hair with bottled water 

• Maybe drinking water from the tap would become the norm again 

• Maybe people would be healthier 

• 
  

What if our political system worked for the betterment of the people, rather than the daily sound bite and Twitter feed? 

• Don’t get me started 

• 
  

Aren’t these just the basics we should expect and have for a good life? In many countries, they are considered human rights. (Maybe not the political thing)  

Someone is bound to ask – how do we pay for it? Won’t the taxes be too high? Aren’t the taxes already too high? One could also ask the government to spend our tax money on things we need before they spend it on things we want. 

Not to overgeneralize but ensuring the basic needs of life for all people isn’t impossible if we want that to be our policy. It isn’t a progressive idea or a socialist idea. It isn’t a liberal or a conservative idea. It’s a humane idea. 

Most states and cities decided long ago that we should be a country of the haves and have-nots. We wrote laws to make it such: single-family zoning, separate and unequal schools, excessive regulation, lack of affordable housing, failure to provide clean water, expensive public colleges, unregulated fossil fuel plants, and the like.   

It’s not an overgeneralization to say that we can do better!