Plus Ça Change . . .

Catching Up

I returned home from Amsterdam last Sunday evening. I think I still have jet-lag. Or, because it’s been years since I’ve traveled across that many different time zones, maybe I’m out of practice. Maybe I’m just tired because the stress of being around that many people (almost all of them strangers) wore me out. Maybe a year and a half of not being near anyone has drained me. It was a great trip, nonetheless. 

I was there to participate in a conference called The Revolution of Hope, organized by the Nexus Institute and held here:

Dutch National Opera and Ballet

We were split into two groups. The morning panel, Revolution! The Political Crises of Our Time, was tasked with analyzing how the world got into this mess. The afternoon panel, Hope Regained: A New World, was charged with figuring out how to get out of the mess we’re in. I thought I would have been on the latter, but perhaps I underestimate other people’s tendency to confuse my realism with cynicism. :)

Other participants in my panel included Wole Soyinka, the first sub-Saharan African to win the Nobel Prize in Literature (he received his in 1986); and Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the rightful president-elect of Belarus who is currently living in exile while her husband remains imprisoned by Alexander Lukashenko. (Lukashenko was elected amid widespread claims of fraud, with over 80 percent of the vote.)

Although most of us on the panel were ideologically aligned, we had plenty of distinct differences: Liberalism is responsible for everything bad that is happening in the world vs. liberalism may be the only thing that can save us (or, in my view, liberalism has never been given a chance); the only path forward is to burn it all down vs. the system needs to be changed incrementally from within; racism is the most devastating global threat vs capitalism is the most devastating global threat, and so on. Despite these opposing points of view, however, we ended on a surprising note of hope. 

Action shot of the symposium

The afternoon panel had a much tougher time of it. From the beginning, their conversation was contentious. They squabbled, they talked over each other and important voices were drowned out. In other words, they exemplified the kinds of in-fighting that often distract from the larger problem and leaves the other side (in case of the United States, the fascists) free to progress unhindered. With participants like Nadia Harhash, a Palestinian lawyer and human rights activist, and Anand Patwardhan, an Indian artist-activist, along with the great Patti Smith, I had hoped for something more constructive. Unfortunately, the  louder, more combative voices prevailed. Former Republican Senator from Arizona and current coward Jeff Flake was also there. He put forth a couple of anodyne and selfish platitudes—it’s been a terrible time for everybody but especially for him because he’d still really like to be in the U.S. Senate (Jeff, you quit) and the problem in America right now is that the two sides refuse to work together. In other words—blah, blah, blah.

As I’ve noted elsewhere, and will continue to do until it’s no longer necessary, refusing to make common cause with fascists doesn’t make us part of the problem. 

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While I was away:

• The CDC approved booster shots for all Americans. Since Dr. Fauci believes boosters will be instrumental in helping us dodge a winter COVID wave this is good news—especially since we now need to keep an eye on the new omicron variant. It would appear that, if nothing else, anti-vaxxers are determined to educate us. Because of them COVID will continue to mutate and we may eventually have to learn the entire Greek alphabet.

  I’m sure  Chuck Todd will  have Ted Cruz and Madison Cawthorne on Meet the Press in order to get their take on how Biden caused the latest variant. 

• We know more about Kevin McCarthy’s eight-hour tantrum than we do about the strategic brilliance of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (that’s Nancy Smash to you)  that got Build Back Better passed in the House 220-213. 

  But what’s in the bill? And why don’t more people know the details? There’s a lot in it, to be sure and it isn’t complicated. The benefits include:

  • Universal and free preschool for 3 and 4 year olds

  • $300 per month, per child tax credits for 39 million families

  • Significant investment in clean energy, which will create jobs and is actually necessary in order to save the planet for our children and grandchildren

  • Reduction of prescription drug prices.

  And that’s just scratching the surface. Instead of informing the American public of this, however, the media claim to be shocked that nobody knows what’s in the bill. They focus instead on its cost calculated over ten years (that way they get to say “trillions”). I don’t remember the last time anybody in the mainstream media complained about defense spending, which is $726 billion for 2022 alone. As for Democratic in-fighting, 96% of Democrats in the Senate want to pass Build Back Better. Only 2 Democrats are standing in the way—along with every single Republican.

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Perhaps the most egregious Democratic-bashing non-story was the report by CNN titled “Exasperation and Dysfunction: Inside Kamala’s Harris’ Frustrating Start as Vice President.” This report uncovered the shocking revelation—you may want to sit down—that the vice president may (or may not) have pronounced the word “the” with a French accent during her recent trip to France for Armistice Day ceremonies.

When I was in grad school for English Lit,  one of my professors told me about a conversation she had with Dan Rather in which he asked her about the correct pronunciation of a certain word (maybe it was even the crucially important word “the”). She explained to him, “There is no such thing as correct pronunciation, only preferred pronunciation.” Also, last I checked, people pronounce “the” as “thee” all the time, especially for emphasis, as in “this is the most absurd piece of ‘reporting’ in recent memory.”

Mon Dieu! An even more damning revelation was the scoop that the vice president paid $375 of her own money to buy a serving dish from a French store. Americans are suffering, we’re told. We should all be buying American products, we’re told. OK.

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Joe Biden was dealt perhaps the worst hand of any president in modern times (certainly in my lifetime): a still-raging global pandemic, a struggling economy, and a political crisis. Yet his sweeping accomplishments keep piling up. He’s created more jobs in his first seven months than any president in history. Unemployment is at a 52-year low. The child poverty rate has been cut in half. America’s standing in the world is rebounding after a disastrous four years. Over 200 million Americans have received at least one dose of the COVID vaccine. And that’s before the many programs that comprise Build Back Better have gone into effect.

And yet we kept being treated to evidence-free (and biased) headlines. The front page of The Washington Post sported these two:

"It’s been a tense year of infighting for Democrats. And this might be as good as it gets.”

“Biden has underestimated problems facing the country — and Democrats fear that has become a political problem.”

After a headline that pointed to the amazing jobs numbers, Politifact felt the need immediately to minimize the accomplishment in the sub-head: “Biden has overseen a large increase in jobs, but he’s not really the one creating them.” Jobs are coming back, we are told, because of the waning threat of the coronavirus. Of course they don’t mention that this has happened because of the immensely successful vaccine roll-out and vaccine mandates but don’t let facts get in the way of a good story.

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There is no equal and opposite force pushing back on the lies and propaganda coming from the right wing media. There just isn’t. Last night Stephen Miller, the most vile figure ever allowed to work in the White House (and think about the competition!), was on Sean Hannity’s White Power Hour. He lied, repeatedly and cynically, about how the last administration, if still in power, would already have developed vaccines to combat all future COVID-19 variants.

Meanwhile CNN is complaining about the cost of milk and gas prices, the increase of which they both misrepresented and blamed on Biden. So-called objective journalists in the mainstream media seem not to have learned anything over the last six years—including the definition of “objective.” Reporters should be neutral as to the facts, always (not lazily pretending that both sides are equally transgressive) and biased towards democracy.

We hear constantly about Biden’s failures vis-a-vis the vaccine rollout, vaccine mandates, and inflation but we never hear about the fact that the Trump administration created the circumstances in which hundreds of thousands of Americans died needlessly or that it practically crashed the economy because, in failing to contain the virus, it became  impossible for people to leave their homes for months on end. 

We’re told that  gas prices are much higher this year but aren’t reminded that the reason they were so low last year is that nobody was driving, And we’re never given the greater context--fluctuations in gas prices only cause grief to American workers because American workers don’t have affordable health care, they don’t have child care, they don’t make a living wage, and the federal minimum wage, which was increased to $7.25 in 2009, hasn’t been raised since.

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This reminds me of something that happened back in 2005 when George W. Bush was holding a series of town halls promoting his plan to reform Social Security. During a conversation with an almost-60-year-old divorced mother of a mentally challenged son, Bush learned that she works three jobs.

"You work three jobs?” he said, sounding surprised. “Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that.” After the crowd finished applauding (for what exactly I’m not sure) Bush added, with his signature blend of insight and compassion, “Get any sleep?”

My guess is she didn’t.