Summary: On this Independence Day, there may not be a lot to celebrate. We seem to live in a time in which, at least according to the Supreme Court, “sincerely held belief,” even if it denies the sphericity of the earth, trumps scientific literacy and understanding. We are engaged in a headlong flight from the ideals of the Enlightenment that called forth the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution. 40% of Americans reject evolution and embrace creationism. On both the left and right, anti-vaxxers and homeschoolers put their children at risk for adverse health consequences or being religiously trained but otherwise illiterate. George Clemenceau was more right than he knew what he described America as the only society that has gone from barbarism to decadence without the customary interval of civilization. The booboisie are in the driver’s seat, and they are running us over a cliff. That’s not something one prefers to celebrate on Independence Day.
This Independence Day, it’s hard to get into a mood of flagwagging American Kiplingism.
Almost twelvescore years ago, our forebears initiated perhaps the most singular and progressive work ever undertaken by the art or wit of humankind. Bringing forth what Abraham Lincoln famously described as “a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” the signers of the Declaration of Independence can have had only the faintest idea of what might become of the independent country they called into being on a sweaty, steamy, muggy Philadelphia afternoon in the summer of 1776.
Unfortunately, the idea that we are all created equal and endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights is not one that sits well with a large number of Americans.
In the days since the Supreme Court announced its egregious Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby decision, the somber predictions set forth in Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissent has started to come largely true. Social conservatives —- the kind who have never quite reconciled themselves to the presence of women or people of color as first-class citizens in our American commonwealth —– now find themselves lining up to argue the extraordinary proposition that if “sincerely held belief” can trump basic scientific literacy, then “sincerely held belief” can also be invoked to allow all manner of invidious discrimination against people of color, women, and, most particularly, queerfolk.
Because in Hobby Lobby, the five male Roman Catholics who made up Court majority in that case apparently decided that it is more important that a corporation should enjoy constitutional and statutory solicitude for being wrong, as long as a corporation can veil its wrongness in a gaudy chasuble of ostensibly sincere so-called religious belief.
By declaring that so-called sincerely held beliefs trump science, the Court has given legal sanction to flat-earthers, climate change denialists, wild-eyed conspiracists, and nut cases of just about every conceivable description a wholly unjustified legal leg to stand on. The Court has also contrived to make itself complicit in America’s headlong flight from the Enlightenment ideals and principles that were so instrumental in calling forth the revolutionary document that was and is the Declaration of Independence.
Today, an estimated two fifths of Americans reject the basic notion of Darwinian evolution. Millions of Americans process a touching, yet wholly unsupported, belief in so-called Young Earth creationism. Indeed, so deep has the creationist rot penetrated our body politic that in South Carolina, a relatively anodyne measure to declare a form of mammoth to be the official state fossil has become a flashpoint for a protracted and embarrassing debate in that state’s legislature over creationism and evolution. Clearly, if unsurprisingly, there is something wrong in South Carolina.
Yet, South Carolina isn’t the only place where what H.L. Mencken famously derided as the Booboisie seems to be in control. The inmates are out of the asylum all over the country. When Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s reboot of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos played on millions of American televisions this spring, the creationist right, with some help from their friends in the Republican Party, went batshit (or, perhaps, to use Rachel Maddow’s more polite phrasing, psycho-guano) and started demanding equal time for creationist views.
And if the creationist right feels comfortable making itself look foolish going psycho-guano over Dr. Tyson’s television series, it feels equally comfortable depriving millions of Americans schoolchildren of a quality scientific education by encouraging fearful parents either to homeschool their children or to send them to sectarian schools which, in terms of the educational rigor of their curricula, are often little more than right wing Jesus madrassas. As much as left-wing anti-vaxxers have put their children at risk by subscribing to debunked and fraudulent theories about links between autism and vaccinations for childhood illnesses, right-wing homeschoolers have put their children at risk by “teaching” them only those few disprovable notions which comport with a religious right weltanschauung.
Who is to say which parent does worse by his or her child and by the body politic at large? Is it the right wing homeschooler or the left-wing anti-vaxxer? Either way, both the anti-vaccination movement and the homeschooling movement reflect the dangerous extent to which America has a willfully and deliberately turned her back on the Enlightenment. Is it any wonder why the other industrialized nations of the world look at us with a scornful wonder? Is it any wonder why, the better part of a century ago, Georges Clemenceau described America as being the only society which had gone from barbarism to decadence without the customary interval of civilization?
We are, after all, the country the treated the world to the unedifying spectacle of the Scopes monkey trial, and we are the same country that today treats the world to the unedifying spectacle of high-profile conservative politicians mouthing creationist drivel. There is something seriously wrong when Kansas Governor Sam Brownback and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee can blather on about Young Earth creationism, and where school boards all around the country can try to teach either outright Genesis-narrative creationism or promulgate so-called Intelligent Design curricula that are nothing more than stalking horses for Young Earth creationism. The booboisie seem to be in the driver seat; they’re running us over a cliff, and that’s not something I prefer to celebrate on this Independence Day.
Friday, July 4, 2014
Sunday, June 22, 2014
ANOTHER DeROSA/DESERT SUN HIT PIECE: A SWING AND A MISS
Summary: Another Desert Sun hit piece bylined from Tatiana Sanchez seeks again to carry sociopathic mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa’s water against councilmembers Greg Pettis and Sam Toles. According to the Desert Sun, traveling on behalf of the city is apparently a bad thing. The Desert Sun, in its contemptibly simplistic and dependably right-wing mindset, cannot or will not understand that part of what we expect our public servants to do is travel and champion our interests in the councils of regional governance where the decisions that affect our destiny are often made. Of course, it would be too much to expect any kind of careful or considerate reporting from the Desert Sun, which routinely assigns reporters to cover Cathedral City who neither know their beat nor much care about it, instead regarding covering Cathedral City as beneath them. Cathedral City residents who know the truth need to be prepared to push back hard against such propagandistic misreporting.
Tatiana Sanchez’s breathless reportage in the Desert Sun about “absenteeism” among various local city council members demonstrates once again how poorly that Gannett newspaper’s reporters know their beats, and how easily they can be bamboozled by ambitious, conniving, prevaricating politicians such as Cathedral City’s Kathleen Joan DeRosa into becoming dependable foot soldiers in local political conflicts.
The article purports to detail the attendance records of various Coachella Valley Council members. Not surprisingly, since the piece obviously was inspired by a whisper from DeRosa into the year of dipsomaniacal Desert Sun executive editor Greg Burton (with whom, oft-repeated rumor has it, DeRosa is engaged in a meretricious social and personal relationship), Sanchez has concentrated on DeRosa’s political rivals in Cathedral City, councilmember Greg Pettis and lame-duck councilman Sam Toles.
As usual for the Desert Sun, Sanchez’s reportage lacks any sort of nuance whatsoever, but appears intended to call forth a kind of visceral, condemnatory reaction from Desert Sun readers, including low information voters in Cathedral City.
If Ms. Sanchez knew her beat at all, and had she been diligent in doing her job, rather than being contends to accept spoon feeding from DeRosa, she would have understood that many council members, including Cathedral City’s Pettis, do in fact travel frequently as part of their jobs. We say this again, as part of their jobs. We constituents expect our council members to participate actively in regional governance activities. Now some Cathedral City Council members make a point of not traveling. Our question for these councilmembers is simple: are you aware that history is made by those who show up?
Since history is, indeed, made by those who show up, travel and participation in regional governance activities are critical to ensure that the views of this community are heard when the decisions that affect our destiny are made. By participating in a regional boards, commissions, and other activities, Mr. Pettis has been able to ensure over the years that Cathedral City’s voice is heard, and that Cathedral City is neither forgotten nor sacrificed on the altar of other cities’ interests when critical policy choices are made. Of course, it would be too much to expect the simplistic minds at the Desert Sun to understand any such thing.
Apparently, being uninformed, unwise, and just downright foolish is a job qualification in our local Gannett newspaper, whose editorial-page editor, James Folmer (who claims to be a California native) made a gross editorial gaffe, a few years back, referring to California’s Legislature in print as the “General Assembly.” Such a gaffe demonstrated, as if he at shouted it from the house tops, that Folmer did not know much about the community about which he presumed to editorialize.
Of course, we in Cathedral City are not without resources of our own to push back against the efforts of a bitter, frustrated sociopath of a mayor to scorch the earth to the greatest extent possible before she leaves office. It is an open secret in Cathedral City that Kathleen Joan DeRosa believes she should have been Mayor-for-Life, and that she regarded councilmember Stan Henry’s decision to run against her this fall as a personal betrayal.
Of course, DeRosa’s political viability has been declining since the fall of 2012, when voters rejected her transparent effort to pack the city Council with a permanent three-vote majority. When voters gave former councilmember Charles “Bud” England his pink slip, they knew what they were doing; they were getting rid of a dependable toady and controlled vote of DeRosa. By replacing England with Henry, voters chose a more independent voice whom DeRosa could not automatically control.
Given that DeRosa has acknowledged that she prefers to burn bridges rather than build them, and given Henry’s willingness to see things through his own eyes, and not through the prism DeRosa sought to impose on him, it was hardly surprising that the bloom should have been off the relationship between the two of them fairly soon after Stan Henry joined the Council after retiring as Cathedral City's Chief of Police. The relationship between a Mayor and a chief of police is far different from the relationship between two Council peers.
Of course, while the nuances of politics in Cathedral City matter to those of us who live here, they are apparently far too dull for reporters from our Gannett newspaper to be willing to do the due diligence to find them. The Desert Sun has never bothered to appoint a beat reporter to Cathedral City who knows well the dynamics of this community.
Indeed, Cathedral City has been ill-served by a succession of callow, naïve, and easily fooled novice journalists. More than one of these novices made it clear by both word and action that they considered being assigned to cover Cathedral City an imposition, that paying attention to this community was beneath them. That sense of condescension made such Desert Sun reporters as Rasha Aly, Bill Byron, and Tamara Sone, among others, easy targets for a sociopathic mayor for whom the telling of deliberate, politically targeted lies has become second nature.
Because we are not without resources to push back, using social media and other instrumentalities, we should do so. By pushing back, we were able to push DeRosa water carrier Tamara Sone out of Cathedral City and out of her job at the Desert Sun altogether. Additionally, we should be sending acidulous letters to the editor in sufficient number that James Folmer cannot simply spike them to satisfy his desire to protect our sociopathic mayor, or to give expression to the evident personal antipathy he entertains toward me and toward those who have dared to question his integrity and professionalism. We need to do some digging, and to bring out into the light of day the true circumstances of our mayor’s residency and to hold her accountable. If the Desert Sun cannot, or will not, make a commitment to fairness and accuracy in its reporting, then we need to push back, hard.
Tatiana Sanchez’s breathless reportage in the Desert Sun about “absenteeism” among various local city council members demonstrates once again how poorly that Gannett newspaper’s reporters know their beats, and how easily they can be bamboozled by ambitious, conniving, prevaricating politicians such as Cathedral City’s Kathleen Joan DeRosa into becoming dependable foot soldiers in local political conflicts.
The article purports to detail the attendance records of various Coachella Valley Council members. Not surprisingly, since the piece obviously was inspired by a whisper from DeRosa into the year of dipsomaniacal Desert Sun executive editor Greg Burton (with whom, oft-repeated rumor has it, DeRosa is engaged in a meretricious social and personal relationship), Sanchez has concentrated on DeRosa’s political rivals in Cathedral City, councilmember Greg Pettis and lame-duck councilman Sam Toles.
As usual for the Desert Sun, Sanchez’s reportage lacks any sort of nuance whatsoever, but appears intended to call forth a kind of visceral, condemnatory reaction from Desert Sun readers, including low information voters in Cathedral City.
If Ms. Sanchez knew her beat at all, and had she been diligent in doing her job, rather than being contends to accept spoon feeding from DeRosa, she would have understood that many council members, including Cathedral City’s Pettis, do in fact travel frequently as part of their jobs. We say this again, as part of their jobs. We constituents expect our council members to participate actively in regional governance activities. Now some Cathedral City Council members make a point of not traveling. Our question for these councilmembers is simple: are you aware that history is made by those who show up?
Since history is, indeed, made by those who show up, travel and participation in regional governance activities are critical to ensure that the views of this community are heard when the decisions that affect our destiny are made. By participating in a regional boards, commissions, and other activities, Mr. Pettis has been able to ensure over the years that Cathedral City’s voice is heard, and that Cathedral City is neither forgotten nor sacrificed on the altar of other cities’ interests when critical policy choices are made. Of course, it would be too much to expect the simplistic minds at the Desert Sun to understand any such thing.
Apparently, being uninformed, unwise, and just downright foolish is a job qualification in our local Gannett newspaper, whose editorial-page editor, James Folmer (who claims to be a California native) made a gross editorial gaffe, a few years back, referring to California’s Legislature in print as the “General Assembly.” Such a gaffe demonstrated, as if he at shouted it from the house tops, that Folmer did not know much about the community about which he presumed to editorialize.
Of course, we in Cathedral City are not without resources of our own to push back against the efforts of a bitter, frustrated sociopath of a mayor to scorch the earth to the greatest extent possible before she leaves office. It is an open secret in Cathedral City that Kathleen Joan DeRosa believes she should have been Mayor-for-Life, and that she regarded councilmember Stan Henry’s decision to run against her this fall as a personal betrayal.
Of course, DeRosa’s political viability has been declining since the fall of 2012, when voters rejected her transparent effort to pack the city Council with a permanent three-vote majority. When voters gave former councilmember Charles “Bud” England his pink slip, they knew what they were doing; they were getting rid of a dependable toady and controlled vote of DeRosa. By replacing England with Henry, voters chose a more independent voice whom DeRosa could not automatically control.
Given that DeRosa has acknowledged that she prefers to burn bridges rather than build them, and given Henry’s willingness to see things through his own eyes, and not through the prism DeRosa sought to impose on him, it was hardly surprising that the bloom should have been off the relationship between the two of them fairly soon after Stan Henry joined the Council after retiring as Cathedral City's Chief of Police. The relationship between a Mayor and a chief of police is far different from the relationship between two Council peers.
Of course, while the nuances of politics in Cathedral City matter to those of us who live here, they are apparently far too dull for reporters from our Gannett newspaper to be willing to do the due diligence to find them. The Desert Sun has never bothered to appoint a beat reporter to Cathedral City who knows well the dynamics of this community.
Indeed, Cathedral City has been ill-served by a succession of callow, naïve, and easily fooled novice journalists. More than one of these novices made it clear by both word and action that they considered being assigned to cover Cathedral City an imposition, that paying attention to this community was beneath them. That sense of condescension made such Desert Sun reporters as Rasha Aly, Bill Byron, and Tamara Sone, among others, easy targets for a sociopathic mayor for whom the telling of deliberate, politically targeted lies has become second nature.
Because we are not without resources to push back, using social media and other instrumentalities, we should do so. By pushing back, we were able to push DeRosa water carrier Tamara Sone out of Cathedral City and out of her job at the Desert Sun altogether. Additionally, we should be sending acidulous letters to the editor in sufficient number that James Folmer cannot simply spike them to satisfy his desire to protect our sociopathic mayor, or to give expression to the evident personal antipathy he entertains toward me and toward those who have dared to question his integrity and professionalism. We need to do some digging, and to bring out into the light of day the true circumstances of our mayor’s residency and to hold her accountable. If the Desert Sun cannot, or will not, make a commitment to fairness and accuracy in its reporting, then we need to push back, hard.
Friday, June 20, 2014
PLEASE, NOT ANOTHER SAM TOLES: WE NEED A TRULY COMMITTED COUNCILMEMBER IN CATHEDRAL CITY
WE NEED A TRULY COMMITTED COUNCILMEMBER IN CATHEDRAL CITY
Summary: Departing councilmember Sam Toles has managed to put his foot in it with his suggestion that the Council should appoint his mother, Carol Lang, to fill out the remaining few weeks of his unexpired term when he finally moves to New York to take up the job he was looking for while ostensibly serving this community. We have been disappointed by Toles; his commitment to this community was always thin at best; is repeated Facebook posts of his forum travel and his frequent absences from the Council left voters wondering if they got what they had been led to expect they would get in 2010 when Toles marketed himself as “the only choice” for voters. We Cathedral City voters have a right to expect that our Council members will be wholeheartedly committed to this community. We also expect that they will have far thicker skins than our two New Yorkers on the Council, Toles and lame-duck incumbent mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa. At all events, our next Council members should not have the personalities of a Sam Toles or a Kathleen DeRosa. We deserve a lot better than what we’ve had.
Departing councilmember Sam Toles’s suggestion that the city Council should appoint his mother, Carol Lang, to fill out a small fraction of his unexpired term prior to the November elections has really worked a nerve with me. That’s not how democracy is supposed to function. Because it displays a kind of unsurprising tone deafness, Toles’s pending resignation raises the issue of the extent to which Cathedral City voters should expect Toles’s successor to be more committed to this community than Toles ever was. Indeed, we may do more than expect it; we may demand it.
Let’s be blunt. Sam Toles has been a serious disappointment to this community, notwithstanding some of his more hyperventilating supporters. Voters have a right to expect that their elected representatives will make a commitment to the community that ought to preclude job hunting on the East Coast and taking a job 3000 miles away while attempting to hold on to a Council seat here in Cathedral City. You cannot have your cake and eat it, too.
Of course, we probably shouldn’t have been surprised that Toles would have left us while still serving on the Council. Facebook posts from the departing councilmember were full of references to European travel on behalf of his then full-time Los Angeles-based employer, and his frequent absences from the city and from Council meetings certainly raised eyebrows in the community to which he moved in 2008 before running a highly successful marketing campaign to get himself elected in 2010 as "the only choice" we feckless Cathedral City residents had to save ourselves. He managed to market himself to the electorate over concerns in some quarters that he was carpetbagging, which he was.
Questions about Toles’s commitment to the community arose not only from the frequency of his foreign travel, but also from statements by him during the 2012 election cycle that he was contemplating his “next political move.” There has been speculation that Toles had been eyeing a primary challenge to Coachella Mayor Eduardo Garcia, the presumptive successor to current 56th Assembly District member Victor Manuel Pérez. According to sources within the Coachella political community, Toles was either warned off or chose not to pursue a candidacy in a district in which he had no name recognition.
Voters have also been disappointed by the thinness of the councilmember’s skin. Toles has a reputation for not handling criticism well. When, after having heard from Toles a whole litany of rather Republican sounding rhetoric, I expressed passing doubts about Mr. Toles’s commitment to the Democratic Party to mutual acquaintances back in 2012, Toles delivered himself of a “Valley Voice” piece in our local Gannett newspaper that constituted 12 column inches of earsplitting “he hurt my feelings” snit, in which Toles suggested that anyone with an authentic commitment to Democratic values must necessarily be some kind of “extremist.” For me, and for others in the community, it was Toles’s “macaca” moment, a gross political gaffe not to be forgotten. Toles also cemented his reputation for being unable to handle criticism by resigning in another earsplitting snit from the Energy and Environment Committee of the Coachella Valley Association of Governments early in his term. Another “macaca” moment that left his elected peers wondering about his basic fitness for office .
As disappointed as we have been by George Samuel Toles’s performance, and by his reputation for self-righteous arrogance, we have an opportunity to elect a councilmember who will be far more committed to this community than Toles ever was. At the risk of sounding parochial, perhaps it is time we elected another native Californian to the Council. Buffalo native Toles seemed happy to spend a great deal of time looking for a job in New York City rather than performing the duties his Cathedral City, California electorate expected him to perform. Now, full disclosure, Toles edged me out in the 2010 Council election, and has managed since then to be a very sore winner, impugning both my integrity and my character, calling me a “sore loser” on more than one occasion.
In truth, I did not mind leaving the Council. At a certain point, being even a bit player in a real life “Game of Thrones” becomes tiresome. What I do mind is Toles’s apparent conviction that the Council seat is his property to dispose of as he sees fit. His suggestion that the Council should gift that seat to his mother, Carol Lang, was the last thing needed to bring my disappointment with his performance and his attitude to public expression.
Council seats are not the property of their occupants. The decision on who should fill a Council seat properly belongs to the electorate, and Toles’s suggestion that the Council should simply bestow “his” seat on a member of his family betrays not only a sense of arrogant entitlement, but also a fundamental lack of understanding of how democracy is supposed to work. We, the voters, not the Council and certainly not George Samuel Toles, are the owners; we are the deciders; we get to choose, not him.
And when we exercise our right of choice, let’s make sure we don’t elect someone who has been in the city all of 22 months before stepping up to try to exploit a political opportunity. Let’s make sure we elect someone whose commitment to California and to Cathedral City is absolute and undiluted by employment out of area or by a job search on the East Coast. Let’s make sure we don’t elect another Sam Toles. Let’s also make sure we don’t elect another crony of the outgoing Mayor. Our New Yorkers on the council have not served us well. Let’s make sure we elect somebody whose heart is here, whose home is here, whose work is here, and who is truly committed to representing this community in a spirit of humility and authentic service.
Summary: Departing councilmember Sam Toles has managed to put his foot in it with his suggestion that the Council should appoint his mother, Carol Lang, to fill out the remaining few weeks of his unexpired term when he finally moves to New York to take up the job he was looking for while ostensibly serving this community. We have been disappointed by Toles; his commitment to this community was always thin at best; is repeated Facebook posts of his forum travel and his frequent absences from the Council left voters wondering if they got what they had been led to expect they would get in 2010 when Toles marketed himself as “the only choice” for voters. We Cathedral City voters have a right to expect that our Council members will be wholeheartedly committed to this community. We also expect that they will have far thicker skins than our two New Yorkers on the Council, Toles and lame-duck incumbent mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa. At all events, our next Council members should not have the personalities of a Sam Toles or a Kathleen DeRosa. We deserve a lot better than what we’ve had.
Departing councilmember Sam Toles’s suggestion that the city Council should appoint his mother, Carol Lang, to fill out a small fraction of his unexpired term prior to the November elections has really worked a nerve with me. That’s not how democracy is supposed to function. Because it displays a kind of unsurprising tone deafness, Toles’s pending resignation raises the issue of the extent to which Cathedral City voters should expect Toles’s successor to be more committed to this community than Toles ever was. Indeed, we may do more than expect it; we may demand it.
Let’s be blunt. Sam Toles has been a serious disappointment to this community, notwithstanding some of his more hyperventilating supporters. Voters have a right to expect that their elected representatives will make a commitment to the community that ought to preclude job hunting on the East Coast and taking a job 3000 miles away while attempting to hold on to a Council seat here in Cathedral City. You cannot have your cake and eat it, too.
Of course, we probably shouldn’t have been surprised that Toles would have left us while still serving on the Council. Facebook posts from the departing councilmember were full of references to European travel on behalf of his then full-time Los Angeles-based employer, and his frequent absences from the city and from Council meetings certainly raised eyebrows in the community to which he moved in 2008 before running a highly successful marketing campaign to get himself elected in 2010 as "the only choice" we feckless Cathedral City residents had to save ourselves. He managed to market himself to the electorate over concerns in some quarters that he was carpetbagging, which he was.
Questions about Toles’s commitment to the community arose not only from the frequency of his foreign travel, but also from statements by him during the 2012 election cycle that he was contemplating his “next political move.” There has been speculation that Toles had been eyeing a primary challenge to Coachella Mayor Eduardo Garcia, the presumptive successor to current 56th Assembly District member Victor Manuel Pérez. According to sources within the Coachella political community, Toles was either warned off or chose not to pursue a candidacy in a district in which he had no name recognition.
Voters have also been disappointed by the thinness of the councilmember’s skin. Toles has a reputation for not handling criticism well. When, after having heard from Toles a whole litany of rather Republican sounding rhetoric, I expressed passing doubts about Mr. Toles’s commitment to the Democratic Party to mutual acquaintances back in 2012, Toles delivered himself of a “Valley Voice” piece in our local Gannett newspaper that constituted 12 column inches of earsplitting “he hurt my feelings” snit, in which Toles suggested that anyone with an authentic commitment to Democratic values must necessarily be some kind of “extremist.” For me, and for others in the community, it was Toles’s “macaca” moment, a gross political gaffe not to be forgotten. Toles also cemented his reputation for being unable to handle criticism by resigning in another earsplitting snit from the Energy and Environment Committee of the Coachella Valley Association of Governments early in his term. Another “macaca” moment that left his elected peers wondering about his basic fitness for office .
As disappointed as we have been by George Samuel Toles’s performance, and by his reputation for self-righteous arrogance, we have an opportunity to elect a councilmember who will be far more committed to this community than Toles ever was. At the risk of sounding parochial, perhaps it is time we elected another native Californian to the Council. Buffalo native Toles seemed happy to spend a great deal of time looking for a job in New York City rather than performing the duties his Cathedral City, California electorate expected him to perform. Now, full disclosure, Toles edged me out in the 2010 Council election, and has managed since then to be a very sore winner, impugning both my integrity and my character, calling me a “sore loser” on more than one occasion.
In truth, I did not mind leaving the Council. At a certain point, being even a bit player in a real life “Game of Thrones” becomes tiresome. What I do mind is Toles’s apparent conviction that the Council seat is his property to dispose of as he sees fit. His suggestion that the Council should gift that seat to his mother, Carol Lang, was the last thing needed to bring my disappointment with his performance and his attitude to public expression.
Council seats are not the property of their occupants. The decision on who should fill a Council seat properly belongs to the electorate, and Toles’s suggestion that the Council should simply bestow “his” seat on a member of his family betrays not only a sense of arrogant entitlement, but also a fundamental lack of understanding of how democracy is supposed to work. We, the voters, not the Council and certainly not George Samuel Toles, are the owners; we are the deciders; we get to choose, not him.
And when we exercise our right of choice, let’s make sure we don’t elect someone who has been in the city all of 22 months before stepping up to try to exploit a political opportunity. Let’s make sure we elect someone whose commitment to California and to Cathedral City is absolute and undiluted by employment out of area or by a job search on the East Coast. Let’s make sure we don’t elect another Sam Toles. Let’s also make sure we don’t elect another crony of the outgoing Mayor. Our New Yorkers on the council have not served us well. Let’s make sure we elect somebody whose heart is here, whose home is here, whose work is here, and who is truly committed to representing this community in a spirit of humility and authentic service.
Thursday, June 19, 2014
CUTTING AND RUNNING: THE POLITICAL MESS CREATED BY SAM TOLES'S RESIGNATION
Summary: the political mess created by the resignation of Cathedral City councilmember Sam Toles has triggered more “Game of Thrones” style politicking in Cathedral City. Speculation is rampant that Toles’s decision to cut and run may have been forced upon him by pressure from outgoing incumbent Mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa and her political claque. Speculation is also rampant that DeRosa, whose term ends in December, will attempt to pack the council with her political supporters and attempt to continue to run things from behind the scenes once she is gone. Yet, as a practical matter, it may not be possible to appoint some dependable crony of DeRosa to serve out a short-term of barely 150 days before the election. It may also not be feasible to try to call a special election to fill out the unexpired terms of either Toles or Mayor pro tem. Chuck Vasquez, who has his own troubles to contend with, and who may be leaving the council as well. Since both Vasquez and Toles would have had to face the voters in November anyway, it makes no sense to waste taxpayer time or dollars on a special election. The council has functioned before at less than full strength, and it can doubtless do so again. The voters of Cathedral City should have the final say — at the regular general election already on calendar for November of this year.
News out of Cathedral City this morning is that first-term councilmember Sam Toles, who recently took a full-time job in New York City, has tendered his resignation from the council.
The resignation is not immediately effective, and is couched in so many weasel words that it leaves open the possibility that Mr. Toles may not actually leave the council for some time.
Of course, Toles’s decision to leave the council now raises a whole storm of political speculation involving him and the possible role of sociopathic “five-star-mayor” Kathleen Joan DeRosa in his decision to go.
Quite frankly, but for the “Game of Thrones” nature of local politics in Cathedral City, Mr. Toles should probably have laid down his council seat when he accepted full-time employment in Manhattan. Certainly, by remaining on the council, Mr. Toles put himself at ever-increasing risk of criminal prosecution for not residing in the constituency represents, an issue that may also confront the lame duck mayor in the future. At some point, something had to give.
And now, something has given. Six months from now, with Sam Toles gone and presumably forgotten by much of his erstwhile constituency, an objective examination of his legacy may prove less flattering to him than he and his supporters might have hoped. Considering the relative thinness of Mr. Toles’s legislative résumé, and Mr. Toles’s inability to handle criticism very well, it is doubtful that his legacy will be capable of being burnished.
Nonetheless, those of us who pay attention to Cathedral City politics are curious to know whether this sudden resignation may have been the result of pressure from the lame-duck incumbent mayor and her political claque, which has always been disturbingly ready to prostitute its own ethics to do her bidding.
Already, City Hall sources tell me, speculation is swirling that DeRosa and her claque may have applied pressure, even extortionate pressure, on Mr. Toles to depart. Speculation also has it that DeRosa and her claque will be pushing to appoint incumbent city clerk Gary Howell to fill out Mr. Toles’s unexpired term.
Such a preference is not surprising. Howell is the ultimate crony, who has been appointed to numerous remunerative boards and other bodies over the course of the last decade and a half. (Full disclosure, Gary Howell ran against me for Council in 2002 with DeRosa’s tacit support. I beat him and went on to serve two full terms as councilmember.) Howell was not elected city clerk, but was appointed to fill out the unexpired term of late city clerk Patricia Hammers, who died during the pendency of the Fair Political Practices Commission’s investigation of DeRosa’s campaign finance practices. If Gary Howell gets appointed to succeed Sam Toles, it will be not because of his qualifications, but to reward a dependable, longtime crony.
Also throwing a potential monkeywrench into matters is the possible departure of Chuck Vasquez from the Council as a consequence of the criminal proceedings currently in train against him. If Mr. Vasquez is convicted or if the matter ends with a plea bargained disposition, Chuck will have to go. If Mr. Vasquez goes, the Council will be down to a minimum quorum of three. DeRosa and her claque and allies will argue strenuously that appointments will need to be made to bring the Council up to full strength.
Such arguments, while politically convenient to DeRosa and her allies, lack strength and honesty. Indeed, there is substantial precedent for the Council functioning, and functioning adequately, at less than full strength. In November, 2004, then-Councilwoman Kathleen Joan DeRosa was elected mayor. Because she was running from a safe seat in the middle of her term, it became necessary to address the vacancy created by her election as mayor. The Council deadlocked two to two on the issue of a successor, and so, rather than appoint a successor and thus anger at least half of the constituency, the Council went for a special election.
Because of the mechanics of a special election, it was not possible to hold such an election until the late spring of 2005; the council thus met as a body of four for a period of nearly six months, with no apparent long-term damage to our local body politic.
Thus, if history be our guide, there is no immediate need to rush to an appointment when the November elections are barely 150 days away. Even getting a special election up and running this close to the regular election at which both Toles and Vasquez would have been facing the voters anyway would take a great deal of time, cost a lot of unnecessary taxpayer dollars, and produce, in the end, Council members serving terms of almost derisory shortness.
By the same token, a council of four would probably deadlock two to two on the issue of who to appoint. Toles has suggested that the Council appoint his mother to succeed him. Such a suggestion is risible. We do not appoint dynastic successions in a democratic body politic, and the question of whether the individual in question has the slightest degree of political qualifications is very much an open one. Appointing Gary Howell, who tried unsuccessfully to get elected back in 2002, and who apparently assumes himself entitled to the seat, would be a slap in the face to Cathedral city voters.
Given the impracticality of calling a special election this close to the general election, and given the very real political fallout that might result from an attempt by lame-duck DeRosa to pack the council, the only defensible course of action for the council is to abide the outcome of the November general election. Even with a council of three, there is still quorum to do business, and the integrity of the political process remains unsullied.
Of course, City Hall sources are all well-nigh unanimous in telling me that DeRosa does not intend to go gracefully or quietly when she ceases to be mayor. Her apparent intent is to try to pack the council with as many of her supporters as possible so that she can continue to influence our politics from behind the scenes. Failing that, she intends to do what she can to scorch the earth and leave as many poison pills as possible behind for her presumptive successor Stan Henry.
The only way to prevent such political shenanigans is to let the people vote at the November election provided by law. We have survived a short council before; we will survive it again. No thanks or kudos to George Samuel Toles.
-xxx-
News out of Cathedral City this morning is that first-term councilmember Sam Toles, who recently took a full-time job in New York City, has tendered his resignation from the council.
The resignation is not immediately effective, and is couched in so many weasel words that it leaves open the possibility that Mr. Toles may not actually leave the council for some time.
Of course, Toles’s decision to leave the council now raises a whole storm of political speculation involving him and the possible role of sociopathic “five-star-mayor” Kathleen Joan DeRosa in his decision to go.
Quite frankly, but for the “Game of Thrones” nature of local politics in Cathedral City, Mr. Toles should probably have laid down his council seat when he accepted full-time employment in Manhattan. Certainly, by remaining on the council, Mr. Toles put himself at ever-increasing risk of criminal prosecution for not residing in the constituency represents, an issue that may also confront the lame duck mayor in the future. At some point, something had to give.
And now, something has given. Six months from now, with Sam Toles gone and presumably forgotten by much of his erstwhile constituency, an objective examination of his legacy may prove less flattering to him than he and his supporters might have hoped. Considering the relative thinness of Mr. Toles’s legislative résumé, and Mr. Toles’s inability to handle criticism very well, it is doubtful that his legacy will be capable of being burnished.
Nonetheless, those of us who pay attention to Cathedral City politics are curious to know whether this sudden resignation may have been the result of pressure from the lame-duck incumbent mayor and her political claque, which has always been disturbingly ready to prostitute its own ethics to do her bidding.
Already, City Hall sources tell me, speculation is swirling that DeRosa and her claque may have applied pressure, even extortionate pressure, on Mr. Toles to depart. Speculation also has it that DeRosa and her claque will be pushing to appoint incumbent city clerk Gary Howell to fill out Mr. Toles’s unexpired term.
Such a preference is not surprising. Howell is the ultimate crony, who has been appointed to numerous remunerative boards and other bodies over the course of the last decade and a half. (Full disclosure, Gary Howell ran against me for Council in 2002 with DeRosa’s tacit support. I beat him and went on to serve two full terms as councilmember.) Howell was not elected city clerk, but was appointed to fill out the unexpired term of late city clerk Patricia Hammers, who died during the pendency of the Fair Political Practices Commission’s investigation of DeRosa’s campaign finance practices. If Gary Howell gets appointed to succeed Sam Toles, it will be not because of his qualifications, but to reward a dependable, longtime crony.
Also throwing a potential monkeywrench into matters is the possible departure of Chuck Vasquez from the Council as a consequence of the criminal proceedings currently in train against him. If Mr. Vasquez is convicted or if the matter ends with a plea bargained disposition, Chuck will have to go. If Mr. Vasquez goes, the Council will be down to a minimum quorum of three. DeRosa and her claque and allies will argue strenuously that appointments will need to be made to bring the Council up to full strength.
Such arguments, while politically convenient to DeRosa and her allies, lack strength and honesty. Indeed, there is substantial precedent for the Council functioning, and functioning adequately, at less than full strength. In November, 2004, then-Councilwoman Kathleen Joan DeRosa was elected mayor. Because she was running from a safe seat in the middle of her term, it became necessary to address the vacancy created by her election as mayor. The Council deadlocked two to two on the issue of a successor, and so, rather than appoint a successor and thus anger at least half of the constituency, the Council went for a special election.
Because of the mechanics of a special election, it was not possible to hold such an election until the late spring of 2005; the council thus met as a body of four for a period of nearly six months, with no apparent long-term damage to our local body politic.
Thus, if history be our guide, there is no immediate need to rush to an appointment when the November elections are barely 150 days away. Even getting a special election up and running this close to the regular election at which both Toles and Vasquez would have been facing the voters anyway would take a great deal of time, cost a lot of unnecessary taxpayer dollars, and produce, in the end, Council members serving terms of almost derisory shortness.
By the same token, a council of four would probably deadlock two to two on the issue of who to appoint. Toles has suggested that the Council appoint his mother to succeed him. Such a suggestion is risible. We do not appoint dynastic successions in a democratic body politic, and the question of whether the individual in question has the slightest degree of political qualifications is very much an open one. Appointing Gary Howell, who tried unsuccessfully to get elected back in 2002, and who apparently assumes himself entitled to the seat, would be a slap in the face to Cathedral city voters.
Given the impracticality of calling a special election this close to the general election, and given the very real political fallout that might result from an attempt by lame-duck DeRosa to pack the council, the only defensible course of action for the council is to abide the outcome of the November general election. Even with a council of three, there is still quorum to do business, and the integrity of the political process remains unsullied.
Of course, City Hall sources are all well-nigh unanimous in telling me that DeRosa does not intend to go gracefully or quietly when she ceases to be mayor. Her apparent intent is to try to pack the council with as many of her supporters as possible so that she can continue to influence our politics from behind the scenes. Failing that, she intends to do what she can to scorch the earth and leave as many poison pills as possible behind for her presumptive successor Stan Henry.
The only way to prevent such political shenanigans is to let the people vote at the November election provided by law. We have survived a short council before; we will survive it again. No thanks or kudos to George Samuel Toles.
-xxx-
Friday, June 6, 2014
THE BERGDAHL BROUHAHA: RAPE CULTURE ON DISPLAY
Summary: The right wing rush to convert the return of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl into some kind of “scandal” represents an example of American rape culture at its worst. Of course, Americans, who used to stand up for their own who were held in foreign captivity, now eagerly take up the cause of the captor, not the captive. Watching the right wing whip its base into a lynch mob mentality over the circumstances of Sgt. Bergdahl’s recovery and whether Bergdahl was “worthy” of being repatriated has been embarrassing on many levels. This whole episode has spoken very ill of our national character, and his demonstrated once again not only the contemptible cravenness of the Republican Party, but also the cowardice of the Democratic Party. Watching this whole tawdry melodrama unfold makes one embarrassed to be an American and equally embarrassed to be a Democrat.
There has been of late a nasty shift in the way Americans view their fellow Americans who fall into the custody of foreign actors or states which bear this country ill will. Our foreign policy has been infected by an unhealthy dose of American rape culture, in which blaming the victim has become the default posture of American conservatives.
Time was that if an American was held captive in a foreign country, other Americans would rally to his or her support.
Not anymore.
In July, 2009, three Americans, Joshua Fattal, Sarah Shourd, and Shane Bauer, who had been hiking in Kurdistan, ventured too close to the Iranian border and were grabbed by Iranian border guards who had crossed into Iraqi territory.
The three were held in Iranian custody, Shourd for the next 14 months, and the other two for more than two years.
During the time of their captivity, American conservatives rallied, not to their side, but the side of the Iranians. The three were subjected, while still in captivity, to a barrage of nasty, often highly personal, criticism and finger-pointing of such intensity as to rise the level of defamation.
More recently, Andrew Tahmooressi, a former Marine, was arrested on gun charges in Tijuana, Baja California, after he inadvertently crossed the border with a gun on his person, violating Mexico’s rather strict, if laughably unenforced, gun laws. Instead of rallying to the support of this incarcerated American, American conservatives rallied to his captors, subjecting him to all manner of hateful criticism and abuse, though he remains incarcerated.
But the worst example of how “blame the victim” rape culture has infected our foreign policy has to be the case of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. Bergdahl, who was held prisoner for roughly five years by the Afghan Taliban. While Bergdahl was in Taliban hands, Republicans and conservatives alike gleefully belabored the White House, accusing President Obama of being inexcusably remiss in securing Sgt. Bergdahl’s release. Had Sgt. Bergdahl died or been killed while in Taliban hands, Republicans and conservatives alike would have gone into full meltdown/attack mode over the issue. There would, no doubt, have been hysterical, hyperventilating calls for Obama’s impeachment.
But Bowe Bergdahl remains inconveniently alive, as much as the Republican Party and the American right would much rather have seen him dead, if for no other reason than as a convenient stick to beat the Obama Administration with.
And so now, in a display of political cravenness and cynicism almost unparalleled in the history of the Republic, the Republican Party and its minions on the right, including the serial liars at Fox “News,” have engaged in a spectacular volte-face on Sgt. Bergdahl’s release, putting forward a three-pronged offensive against the ex-prisoner.
First, they squawk, the president allegedly violated the law by not giving Congress prior notice of negotiations for a prisoner exchange, notwithstanding that Congress had been made aware of the pendency of such negotiations almost 2 years since.
Second, they complain that somehow we “paid too much” to get Bergdahl back. Where was their outrage when Israel released 1,027 Palestinian militants to secure the return of Gilad Shalit? Many of the Palestinian militants sprung to recover Shalit were and remain far more dangerous than the five washed-up Taliban operators we released from Guantánamo —released, mind you, not back to Afghanistan, but into the custody of the government of Qatar.
Third, as is now typical of the American right, Republican and conservative strategists launched an all-out attack on Sgt. Bergdahl himself, alleging that he is a “deserter,” a “traitor,” and someone who was, to all intents and purposes, unworthy of repatriation. Moreover, not content with smearing Bowe Bergdahl himself, the right wing scream machine has now sought to employ a typically North Korean, Kim Jong-Un tactic of attacking the entire Bergdahl family.
And such lynch mob tactics seem to be working. Democrats, once again displaying all the spine God gave an axolotl, have managed to show their usual cowardice in the face of an all-out conservative media campaign directed against both Barack Obama and Bowe Bergdahl. Democrats have been consciously and purposely distancing themselves from the President and the quondam prisoner of war, with prominent Democratic legislators racing to criticize the president for not having kowtowed to Congress. That Democrats will always go into a crouch and wet or crap themselves every time Republicans say “boo” is no surprise. That Democrats would behave so cravenly on an issue so freighted with moral significance is contemptible. What the fuck is the matter with my party?
Of course, if my party has managed to live down to its reputation for wetting itself and floating away on its own fear pee every time Republicans say “boo,” the Republicans have managed to live down to their own reputation for relentless, nihilistic political Maoism. Mao Zedong used to exhort his followers that “[they] should oppose everything the enemy supports and support everything the enemy opposes,” and that they should “always put politics in command.” To a Republican Party that has adopted in their fullest form the mindsets of Francisco Franco’s Falangist outlook, Democrats and reasonable Americans are a collective enemy to be destroyed by any means necessary. Republicans would have applauded when the Franquistas herded more than 900 Spanish loyalists into the bullring in Badajoz in 1936 and machine-gunned all of them to death.
In Bowe Bergdahl’s hometown of Hailey, Idaho, plans to welcome him home had to be shelved after the town fathers and mothers were besieged with angry phone calls and emails, including death threats. Rather than put up with the mouth-foaming vigilantism of a mob whipped to frenzy by conservative operatives in slick suits, Hailey took the line of least resistance. Of course, if conservatives were worried about real traitors from Hailey, they ought to remember that it was also the hometown of whack job poet Ezra Pound, whose aid and comfort to Bonito Mussolini’s Italy earned him an indictment for treason following the Second World War.
But Bowe Bergdahl is no Ezra Pound. While all manner of allegations have been whipped up against him, largely at the urging and conjuring of the Republican Party and the conservative scream machine, nothing has been adjudicated, no competent evidentiary facts have been developed, and any case against Bowe Bergdahl at this point remains far thinner than was ever the case of United States brought against Ezra Pound.
Yet, the rush to blame the victim has become so much a part of the poisonous discourse of American society that any speculation about its etiology necessarily leads us right back to an examination of America’s rape culture. In rape culture, the rapist is never responsible. The rapist is always led on by the victim, who, if female, enticed the rapist by either dressing immodestly, or behaving seductively, or just existing.
Rape victims are routinely characterized on the right and in social networking as “sluts,” “whores,” “skanks,” “tramps,” or any of a series of other shaming monikers. We saw rape culture on its fullest display when Rush Limbaugh spent two full days of his program slut shaming Sandra Fluke for having had the temerity to openly discuss her need for birth control medications to control ovarian cysts. As usual, Limbaugh could not be bothered to get his facts straight before launching into his disgustingly misogynistic attack.
As usual, the “Bergdahl is a traitor” crowd cannot be bothered to get their facts straight before launching into an attack that is embarrassing to all right-thinking Americans. To speak of Bergdahl’s traducers as a lynch mob is metaphorically, if not necessarily literally (yet) accurate. What we see is rape culture in action. Because Bergdahl is not dead, and thus his metaphorical bloody shirt cannot be waived before the Republican base to whip up another frenzy of hatred against an African-American president they cannot stand, then Bergdahl must be punished for his transgression of still being alive. What better way to score political points off a President whose race is objectionable to the right than by crapping in the punch bowl of the relief Bowe Bergdahl and his family must feel that he is out of Taliban hands?
There is enough cravenness on both sides the political aisle to justify damning both political parties to hell. The Republicans have been exponents of everything we profess to dislike about rape culture, blaming the victim, attacking the victim’s family, and attacking the institutions put in place to help the victim. The Democrats deserve a universe of contempt because, with the heroic exceptions of Barack Obama and Harry Reid, most of them have soiled themselves before Republican bullying and sullied themselves in their dishonorable haste to cover their own asses.
There have been very few times in my life when I have been embarrassed to be an American and embarrassed to be a Democrat. This is one of those times.
-xxx-
PAUL S. MARCHAND is an attorney who lives and practices in Cathedral City, California. The views contained herein are his own, and not necessarily the views of the Democratic Party of which he is a member and County-level official, largely because the Party lacks the hardihood to stand up unconditionally and say that no American should be left behind to languish in the captivity of barbarians.
There has been of late a nasty shift in the way Americans view their fellow Americans who fall into the custody of foreign actors or states which bear this country ill will. Our foreign policy has been infected by an unhealthy dose of American rape culture, in which blaming the victim has become the default posture of American conservatives.
Time was that if an American was held captive in a foreign country, other Americans would rally to his or her support.
Not anymore.
In July, 2009, three Americans, Joshua Fattal, Sarah Shourd, and Shane Bauer, who had been hiking in Kurdistan, ventured too close to the Iranian border and were grabbed by Iranian border guards who had crossed into Iraqi territory.
The three were held in Iranian custody, Shourd for the next 14 months, and the other two for more than two years.
During the time of their captivity, American conservatives rallied, not to their side, but the side of the Iranians. The three were subjected, while still in captivity, to a barrage of nasty, often highly personal, criticism and finger-pointing of such intensity as to rise the level of defamation.
More recently, Andrew Tahmooressi, a former Marine, was arrested on gun charges in Tijuana, Baja California, after he inadvertently crossed the border with a gun on his person, violating Mexico’s rather strict, if laughably unenforced, gun laws. Instead of rallying to the support of this incarcerated American, American conservatives rallied to his captors, subjecting him to all manner of hateful criticism and abuse, though he remains incarcerated.
But the worst example of how “blame the victim” rape culture has infected our foreign policy has to be the case of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. Bergdahl, who was held prisoner for roughly five years by the Afghan Taliban. While Bergdahl was in Taliban hands, Republicans and conservatives alike gleefully belabored the White House, accusing President Obama of being inexcusably remiss in securing Sgt. Bergdahl’s release. Had Sgt. Bergdahl died or been killed while in Taliban hands, Republicans and conservatives alike would have gone into full meltdown/attack mode over the issue. There would, no doubt, have been hysterical, hyperventilating calls for Obama’s impeachment.
But Bowe Bergdahl remains inconveniently alive, as much as the Republican Party and the American right would much rather have seen him dead, if for no other reason than as a convenient stick to beat the Obama Administration with.
And so now, in a display of political cravenness and cynicism almost unparalleled in the history of the Republic, the Republican Party and its minions on the right, including the serial liars at Fox “News,” have engaged in a spectacular volte-face on Sgt. Bergdahl’s release, putting forward a three-pronged offensive against the ex-prisoner.
First, they squawk, the president allegedly violated the law by not giving Congress prior notice of negotiations for a prisoner exchange, notwithstanding that Congress had been made aware of the pendency of such negotiations almost 2 years since.
Second, they complain that somehow we “paid too much” to get Bergdahl back. Where was their outrage when Israel released 1,027 Palestinian militants to secure the return of Gilad Shalit? Many of the Palestinian militants sprung to recover Shalit were and remain far more dangerous than the five washed-up Taliban operators we released from Guantánamo —released, mind you, not back to Afghanistan, but into the custody of the government of Qatar.
Third, as is now typical of the American right, Republican and conservative strategists launched an all-out attack on Sgt. Bergdahl himself, alleging that he is a “deserter,” a “traitor,” and someone who was, to all intents and purposes, unworthy of repatriation. Moreover, not content with smearing Bowe Bergdahl himself, the right wing scream machine has now sought to employ a typically North Korean, Kim Jong-Un tactic of attacking the entire Bergdahl family.
And such lynch mob tactics seem to be working. Democrats, once again displaying all the spine God gave an axolotl, have managed to show their usual cowardice in the face of an all-out conservative media campaign directed against both Barack Obama and Bowe Bergdahl. Democrats have been consciously and purposely distancing themselves from the President and the quondam prisoner of war, with prominent Democratic legislators racing to criticize the president for not having kowtowed to Congress. That Democrats will always go into a crouch and wet or crap themselves every time Republicans say “boo” is no surprise. That Democrats would behave so cravenly on an issue so freighted with moral significance is contemptible. What the fuck is the matter with my party?
Of course, if my party has managed to live down to its reputation for wetting itself and floating away on its own fear pee every time Republicans say “boo,” the Republicans have managed to live down to their own reputation for relentless, nihilistic political Maoism. Mao Zedong used to exhort his followers that “[they] should oppose everything the enemy supports and support everything the enemy opposes,” and that they should “always put politics in command.” To a Republican Party that has adopted in their fullest form the mindsets of Francisco Franco’s Falangist outlook, Democrats and reasonable Americans are a collective enemy to be destroyed by any means necessary. Republicans would have applauded when the Franquistas herded more than 900 Spanish loyalists into the bullring in Badajoz in 1936 and machine-gunned all of them to death.
In Bowe Bergdahl’s hometown of Hailey, Idaho, plans to welcome him home had to be shelved after the town fathers and mothers were besieged with angry phone calls and emails, including death threats. Rather than put up with the mouth-foaming vigilantism of a mob whipped to frenzy by conservative operatives in slick suits, Hailey took the line of least resistance. Of course, if conservatives were worried about real traitors from Hailey, they ought to remember that it was also the hometown of whack job poet Ezra Pound, whose aid and comfort to Bonito Mussolini’s Italy earned him an indictment for treason following the Second World War.
But Bowe Bergdahl is no Ezra Pound. While all manner of allegations have been whipped up against him, largely at the urging and conjuring of the Republican Party and the conservative scream machine, nothing has been adjudicated, no competent evidentiary facts have been developed, and any case against Bowe Bergdahl at this point remains far thinner than was ever the case of United States brought against Ezra Pound.
Yet, the rush to blame the victim has become so much a part of the poisonous discourse of American society that any speculation about its etiology necessarily leads us right back to an examination of America’s rape culture. In rape culture, the rapist is never responsible. The rapist is always led on by the victim, who, if female, enticed the rapist by either dressing immodestly, or behaving seductively, or just existing.
Rape victims are routinely characterized on the right and in social networking as “sluts,” “whores,” “skanks,” “tramps,” or any of a series of other shaming monikers. We saw rape culture on its fullest display when Rush Limbaugh spent two full days of his program slut shaming Sandra Fluke for having had the temerity to openly discuss her need for birth control medications to control ovarian cysts. As usual, Limbaugh could not be bothered to get his facts straight before launching into his disgustingly misogynistic attack.
As usual, the “Bergdahl is a traitor” crowd cannot be bothered to get their facts straight before launching into an attack that is embarrassing to all right-thinking Americans. To speak of Bergdahl’s traducers as a lynch mob is metaphorically, if not necessarily literally (yet) accurate. What we see is rape culture in action. Because Bergdahl is not dead, and thus his metaphorical bloody shirt cannot be waived before the Republican base to whip up another frenzy of hatred against an African-American president they cannot stand, then Bergdahl must be punished for his transgression of still being alive. What better way to score political points off a President whose race is objectionable to the right than by crapping in the punch bowl of the relief Bowe Bergdahl and his family must feel that he is out of Taliban hands?
There is enough cravenness on both sides the political aisle to justify damning both political parties to hell. The Republicans have been exponents of everything we profess to dislike about rape culture, blaming the victim, attacking the victim’s family, and attacking the institutions put in place to help the victim. The Democrats deserve a universe of contempt because, with the heroic exceptions of Barack Obama and Harry Reid, most of them have soiled themselves before Republican bullying and sullied themselves in their dishonorable haste to cover their own asses.
There have been very few times in my life when I have been embarrassed to be an American and embarrassed to be a Democrat. This is one of those times.
-xxx-
PAUL S. MARCHAND is an attorney who lives and practices in Cathedral City, California. The views contained herein are his own, and not necessarily the views of the Democratic Party of which he is a member and County-level official, largely because the Party lacks the hardihood to stand up unconditionally and say that no American should be left behind to languish in the captivity of barbarians.
Sunday, June 1, 2014
CAMPAIGN LAWLESSNESS IN CATHEDRAL CITY
Summary: In a state well-known for having some of the nation’s toughest campaign finance disclosure laws, some locals in Cathedral City seem to believe that those laws do not apply to them. Organized (largely Tea Partisan) opposition to Cathedral City’s Measure B sales tax reauthorization seems to revolve around three residents, former one-term Palm Springs Councilman Tuck Broich, his wife Alice, and local gadfly/disturber-of-the-peace Jens Mueller. When called on their blithe disregard for campaign finance disclosure, the “No on B” troika pushed aggressively back, contending that they are in some way not bound by the law, a position often taken by outgoing Cathedral City mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa, whose willingness to play fast and loose with campaign finance disclosure laws has gotten her heavily sanctioned by California’s Fair Political Practices Commission. If Cathedral City has become something of a “Wild West” in terms of almost routine violations of campaign finance disclosure laws, it is because DeRosa has set the tone therefor.
California is justly well-known for having some of the toughest campaign finance disclosure laws in the country. If you want to run a state or local political campaign anywhere in the Golden State, you had better be prepared to disclose the identities of those who are bankrolling your effort.
Apparently, though, there are some people in Cathedral City who believe that the rules just do not apply to them. Among them is outgoing lame-duck mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa, who recently got slapped with a fairly hefty fine by California’s Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) after getting caught engaging in some fairly severe campaign finance lawbreaking.
Of course, DeRosa, who cannot be said to be a classy individual, tried very hard to shunt the blame for her criminality onto the late city clerk Patricia Dale Hammers, whose own corrupt and unneutral conduct might well have earned her criminal prosecution and potential jail time had she not died. Nonetheless, DeRosa has a long history of playing fast and loose with the law and with the truth, and no particular embarrassment about allowing her campaigns to be substantially underwritten by local developers. But at least DeRosa is on the way out; we may hope that under a new mayor and council Cathedral City will enjoy a restoration of correct and honorable government.
But no matter how correct or honorable the government may be, any government must have the fiscal resources to be able to carry out its core functions. Here in Cathedral city, there are a number of vocal local residents who do not seem to agree with this proposition. They has been vehement in their opposition to Measure B, a reauthorization of a 1% local sales tax. To hear these opponents of Measure B tell it, the reauthorization of the sales tax is the most awful thing conceivable, and would push the city into a cesspit of “corruption.”
Still, one does not need to get into a debate over the merits of Measure B to be somewhat concerned about the way in which opponents of Measure B have fallen into the DeRosa trap of playing fast and loose with California’s campaign finance disclosure laws. Example; most of the “No on B” signs that have been popping up like weeds around the city do not contain the required disclosure of the name of the entity or committee that has paid for the signs. There is no committee identification and no FPPC identification number on the materials that had been disseminated in opposition to Measure B.
When our local Gannett newspaper disclosed these matters in an article in yesterday’s newspaper, certain opponents of Measure B were quick to attempt to push back. The nonconforming signs, for example, were printed by two local Tea Partisan activists, Alice and Tuck Broich. Now I happen to know the Broichs personally, and on a personal level they seem like perfectly nice people, even if I reprehend their politics to the nth degree. But Tuck, a sometime one-term councilman from Palm Springs, having run at least one victorious political campaign, ought to know better. Instead, Tuck seems to have taken the position that somehow the law does not apply to him. This is a position he needs to reconsider, given that there has been an uptick in both public integrity and campaign finance prosecutions in California. An FPPC that was willing to slap thousands of dollars in fines on Kathleen Joan DeRosa may feel no compunction about going after Alice and Tuck Broich, and the Commission would be within its rights to do so.
But there are more than Broichs in the troika of vocal opponents of Measure B. Among the loudest and most strident of the “No on B” contingent has been perennial gadfly and disturber-of-the-peace Jens Mueller, a naturalized immigrant from Germany with rather disturbing views about Adolf Hitler. Mueller, who runs a Facebook page called “Citizens against Corruption,” has gone on record praising the Nazi dictator for destroying the German labor union movement in 1933, declaring “[Hitler] had one good idea, then.” Mueller, who twice ran unsuccessfully for city Council, has a reputation for being loud and disruptive at council meetings, and for trafficking in claims concerning our city’s fiscal condition that can be, and have been, easily and repeatedly disproved.
The Broichs and Mueller seem to represent the core of what is essentially Tea Partisan opposition to Measure B. Indeed, the troika’s opposition does seem to be grounded in an anti-tax, “starve the beast” view of government, a nihilistic formulation first propounded by anti–tax extremist Grover Norquist, who has expressed a desire to reduce the size of government to the point where the government can be “drowned in a bathtub.” Such an ideology apparently fits Jens Mueller to a T. Mueller, when running for office, described himself as the “anti-tax, anti-union, anti-pension” candidate. It should not come as surprise that Mr. Mueller never, in either of his campaigns, was able to articulate what he was for, but could only rage against what he opposed. Indeed, Mueller has made noises about wanting to run for mayor this fall, opening himself up to legitimate questions about the extent to which he possesses the moral character or municipal loyalty to hold any political office whatsoever. If, as is expected, sitting councilmember Stan Henry seeks the mayoralty, it is anticipated that Mueller would be trounced.
Unfortunately, the anti-tax Tea Partisans who has been leading the opposition to Measure B seem to have been able to convince some residents of our Cathedral City Cove to jump on the “No on B” bandwagon, wherein some of these gullible residents have uncritically adopted much of the rhetoric we have become accustomed to hearing from people like Paul Ryan, Grover Norquist, and the Republican National Committee.
To repeat, I do not propose to argue the merits of Measure B or the extent to which the debate over measure B may be starting to take on a partisan tone. What does trouble me, however, are two separate yet not dissimilar trends with respect to the battle over B. The first is the apparent “screw you, I’ve got mine” viewpoint that seems to have animated other organized oppositions to prior revenue measures in our city’s history.
The other, somewhat related issue is the apparent belief in some quarters in our community that it really is possible to get something for nothing; if you just keep cutting, the services will keep coming. Our own history in Cathedral City teaches us that this is not the case. At a certain point, it simply becomes impossible to afford all of the Cadillac goodies that a population may want but is only willing to pay Hyundai prices for.
But, what is most troublesome about the Tea Partisan opposition to Measure B is the extent to which it has bought in to a philosophy of lawlessness espoused time and time again by our outgoing mayor. To a certain extent, DeRosa needs to take the blame for the lawless behavior of the “no on B” contingent. Over the ten winters she has been mayor, DeRosa has set a tone for borderline behavior and for playing fast and loose with California’s campaign disclosure laws. On DeRosa’s watch, Cathedral City has become something of a “Wild West” with respect to campaign finance disclosure.
It is debatable whether the Broichs and Mueller would have imagined themselves immune to California’s campaign disclosure laws if they had not taken their cue from Kathleen Joan DeRosa. Her departure cannot come soon enough, and we may hope in the meantime that the public will reject the lascivious and unlawful oglings of the “No on B” disturbers of the peace.
California is justly well-known for having some of the toughest campaign finance disclosure laws in the country. If you want to run a state or local political campaign anywhere in the Golden State, you had better be prepared to disclose the identities of those who are bankrolling your effort.
Apparently, though, there are some people in Cathedral City who believe that the rules just do not apply to them. Among them is outgoing lame-duck mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa, who recently got slapped with a fairly hefty fine by California’s Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) after getting caught engaging in some fairly severe campaign finance lawbreaking.
Of course, DeRosa, who cannot be said to be a classy individual, tried very hard to shunt the blame for her criminality onto the late city clerk Patricia Dale Hammers, whose own corrupt and unneutral conduct might well have earned her criminal prosecution and potential jail time had she not died. Nonetheless, DeRosa has a long history of playing fast and loose with the law and with the truth, and no particular embarrassment about allowing her campaigns to be substantially underwritten by local developers. But at least DeRosa is on the way out; we may hope that under a new mayor and council Cathedral City will enjoy a restoration of correct and honorable government.
But no matter how correct or honorable the government may be, any government must have the fiscal resources to be able to carry out its core functions. Here in Cathedral city, there are a number of vocal local residents who do not seem to agree with this proposition. They has been vehement in their opposition to Measure B, a reauthorization of a 1% local sales tax. To hear these opponents of Measure B tell it, the reauthorization of the sales tax is the most awful thing conceivable, and would push the city into a cesspit of “corruption.”
Still, one does not need to get into a debate over the merits of Measure B to be somewhat concerned about the way in which opponents of Measure B have fallen into the DeRosa trap of playing fast and loose with California’s campaign finance disclosure laws. Example; most of the “No on B” signs that have been popping up like weeds around the city do not contain the required disclosure of the name of the entity or committee that has paid for the signs. There is no committee identification and no FPPC identification number on the materials that had been disseminated in opposition to Measure B.
When our local Gannett newspaper disclosed these matters in an article in yesterday’s newspaper, certain opponents of Measure B were quick to attempt to push back. The nonconforming signs, for example, were printed by two local Tea Partisan activists, Alice and Tuck Broich. Now I happen to know the Broichs personally, and on a personal level they seem like perfectly nice people, even if I reprehend their politics to the nth degree. But Tuck, a sometime one-term councilman from Palm Springs, having run at least one victorious political campaign, ought to know better. Instead, Tuck seems to have taken the position that somehow the law does not apply to him. This is a position he needs to reconsider, given that there has been an uptick in both public integrity and campaign finance prosecutions in California. An FPPC that was willing to slap thousands of dollars in fines on Kathleen Joan DeRosa may feel no compunction about going after Alice and Tuck Broich, and the Commission would be within its rights to do so.
But there are more than Broichs in the troika of vocal opponents of Measure B. Among the loudest and most strident of the “No on B” contingent has been perennial gadfly and disturber-of-the-peace Jens Mueller, a naturalized immigrant from Germany with rather disturbing views about Adolf Hitler. Mueller, who runs a Facebook page called “Citizens against Corruption,” has gone on record praising the Nazi dictator for destroying the German labor union movement in 1933, declaring “[Hitler] had one good idea, then.” Mueller, who twice ran unsuccessfully for city Council, has a reputation for being loud and disruptive at council meetings, and for trafficking in claims concerning our city’s fiscal condition that can be, and have been, easily and repeatedly disproved.
The Broichs and Mueller seem to represent the core of what is essentially Tea Partisan opposition to Measure B. Indeed, the troika’s opposition does seem to be grounded in an anti-tax, “starve the beast” view of government, a nihilistic formulation first propounded by anti–tax extremist Grover Norquist, who has expressed a desire to reduce the size of government to the point where the government can be “drowned in a bathtub.” Such an ideology apparently fits Jens Mueller to a T. Mueller, when running for office, described himself as the “anti-tax, anti-union, anti-pension” candidate. It should not come as surprise that Mr. Mueller never, in either of his campaigns, was able to articulate what he was for, but could only rage against what he opposed. Indeed, Mueller has made noises about wanting to run for mayor this fall, opening himself up to legitimate questions about the extent to which he possesses the moral character or municipal loyalty to hold any political office whatsoever. If, as is expected, sitting councilmember Stan Henry seeks the mayoralty, it is anticipated that Mueller would be trounced.
Unfortunately, the anti-tax Tea Partisans who has been leading the opposition to Measure B seem to have been able to convince some residents of our Cathedral City Cove to jump on the “No on B” bandwagon, wherein some of these gullible residents have uncritically adopted much of the rhetoric we have become accustomed to hearing from people like Paul Ryan, Grover Norquist, and the Republican National Committee.
To repeat, I do not propose to argue the merits of Measure B or the extent to which the debate over measure B may be starting to take on a partisan tone. What does trouble me, however, are two separate yet not dissimilar trends with respect to the battle over B. The first is the apparent “screw you, I’ve got mine” viewpoint that seems to have animated other organized oppositions to prior revenue measures in our city’s history.
The other, somewhat related issue is the apparent belief in some quarters in our community that it really is possible to get something for nothing; if you just keep cutting, the services will keep coming. Our own history in Cathedral City teaches us that this is not the case. At a certain point, it simply becomes impossible to afford all of the Cadillac goodies that a population may want but is only willing to pay Hyundai prices for.
But, what is most troublesome about the Tea Partisan opposition to Measure B is the extent to which it has bought in to a philosophy of lawlessness espoused time and time again by our outgoing mayor. To a certain extent, DeRosa needs to take the blame for the lawless behavior of the “no on B” contingent. Over the ten winters she has been mayor, DeRosa has set a tone for borderline behavior and for playing fast and loose with California’s campaign disclosure laws. On DeRosa’s watch, Cathedral City has become something of a “Wild West” with respect to campaign finance disclosure.
It is debatable whether the Broichs and Mueller would have imagined themselves immune to California’s campaign disclosure laws if they had not taken their cue from Kathleen Joan DeRosa. Her departure cannot come soon enough, and we may hope in the meantime that the public will reject the lascivious and unlawful oglings of the “No on B” disturbers of the peace.
-xxx-
Monday, May 26, 2014
BENDING OUR AMERICAN ARC TOWARD JUSTICE, REDUX
SUMMARY: Memorial Day began after the Civil War as a commemoration of those who had fallen in America’s greatest struggle for social justice. Though we have engrafted additional layers of meaning onto Memorial Day, that original subtext is still very much at the heart of our commemoration of those who have died in this country’s service. If we are to do right by those who have laid the costliest of sacrifice on the altar of freedom, we must ensure that the arc of America’s moral universe continues to bend toward justice and toward a more perfect and inclusive Union, and those who have borne the burden of battle are not treated as a disposable commodity (and left to take their own lives at a frightening rate) by a society that has become as habituated to endless war as the residents of some of our inner cities have become habituated to gang violence.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Of all the various holidays that festoon our American calendar, two specifically force us to confront the reality of war and sacrifice. Veterans Day (or Armistice Day as it is still called in some quarters) should rightly turn our minds toward those who have fought in our wars, facing foreign shot, foreign shell, and foreign steel on our behalf. Veterans Day is a time to think about the moral and social debt we owe to those who have gone to war and returned.
By contrast, Memorial Day is a time to commemorate those who have fallen in this country’s service. It is time to give thanks for their service, but also a time to think carefully and critically about larger questions of war, peace, and the limbo in which societies often find themselves between the two, as we have found ourselves since the end of World War II.
On Memorial Day, I find myself ineluctably drawn back to words spoken more than half a century ago at West Point by Douglas MacArthur as he accepted the Sylvanus Thayer award. Addressing the Corps of Cadets, MacArthur spoke of hearing in his dreams “the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield.”
For most of us now living, America has been at war or involved in military operations for more years than she has been at peace. The soundtrack of the greater part of our lives has been “that strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield.”
Now Memorial Day began among African-American freedmen in Charleston, South Carolina as Decoration Day, a commemoration of the Union’s Civil War dead. Though the passage of nearly a century and a half has led to considerable accretions of symbolism and meaning onto Memorial Day, it began, and remains still, a commemoration of the greatest struggle for social justice in American history.
For if the Civil War began as merely a fight to preserve the Union, it ineluctably evolved into a far larger moral confrontation as Americans realized that the Union could not be saved except by overthrowing once and for all the Peculiar Institution of chattel slavery. If the Union were to be saved, it could have no more truck with the proposition that it is ever permissible for one human being to own another.
Since then, the arc of our moral universe, however long, has bent, however slowly, toward justice. Starting with the abolition of slavery itself, America has engaged, over and over again, in a series of often agonizing internal struggles over who and who is not a part of our American body politic.
It has taken more than a century to rid ourselves of the grosser inequities and iniquities of the Peculiar Institution. Even now, with an African-American president in the White House, racial insecurities continue to bedevil our political discourse.
It has taken more than a century to accept the basic proposition that women ought to be entitled to all of the badges and incidents of first-class citizenship. Women’s suffrage means little if women can legitimately discriminated against in hiring and compensation or be denied access to basic reproductive autonomy or contraception.
We are still involved today in a great struggle over whether America’s queerfolk should even be allowed to exist, let alone enjoy first-class citizenship as out people in the Commonwealth.
Yet, the arc continues to bend toward justice; it continues to bend toward a more perfect Union and a more inclusive Commonwealth, even if some in our society find themselves apoplectic at such a prospect. But a society that cannot find room for people of color, for women, for the queer, and for all who are in some way Other, is a society that has yet to do right by those whose final resting places are to be found in our national cemeteries, who in this country’s service laid down what Abraham Lincoln so movingly called “so costly a sacrifice on the altar of freedom.” We must make it right, especially for those whose sacrifice winds up being long deferred, whose fatal forfeit comes up for payment long after the battle is over.
Still, making it right has to involve more than trite, anodyne, talismanic invocations of “thank you for your service.” Every time I hear such an expression, I think I want to scream. “Thank you for your service” is emotional kitsch; it sounds like something we might say to a doorman or a skycap, while proffering some sort of miniscule gratuity. “Thank you for your service” reflects a dangerous societal view of our service members as being in some way a disposable commodity. Perhaps the sheer length of our military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan has deadened us to the reality of war. We have forgotten General Sherman’s warning that “war is hell... its glory is all moonshine.”
Indeed, our tendency to treat those who have borne the battle as disposable commodities in a grimly reductionist economic analysis may be at least partly responsible for the epidemic of suicides among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. A 2010 study by the Department of Veterans Affairs, released last year, indicated that veterans were taking their own lives at the staggering rate of 22 a day. Such a number ought to shock us. For these are the casualties of the invisible wounds of war, the emotional wounds that kill slowly. If we were to consider death by suicide as combat related, the number of Iraq and Afghanistan war dead would easily double. Yet what can we say to the returning veteran who comes home feeling an anguish so deep no tears will come, a pain so overwhelming that there are no words to describe it?
Doing right by those who have borne the battle must involve more than trite forms of words. If Dostoyevsky was right to observe that we can judge a society by entering its prisons, we may equally judge a society by the extent of its compassion toward those who fight its wars. By that measure, we are still falling short. We have become inured to the idea of a constant state of military hostilities, and we have built around our civilian souls a Chinese wall by which we may hope to insulate ourselves from those equally ongoing realities of war, injury, and death.
Yet the more strongly we build that Chinese wall, the more we harden ourselves and wall ourselves off from the capacity for compassion and empathy. Sadly, many of us appear to have become as hardened and indifferent to the sufferings of our servicemembers as residents of high crime inner-city neighborhoods become habituated to gang violence. Our wars are bereaving us of some important part of our humanity, if only we knew exactly of what we were being bereft.
On this Memorial Day, as we recall the sacrifice of those who fell for us, we should remember two things. First, let us remember that America is always at her greatest when she seeks purposefully after justice. Second, let us remember that from the earliest days of our history, those who have died for America have been of every sort and condition of human being.
Male and female they have died for us.
Old and young they have died for us.
Straight and queer they have died for us.
From every creed and confession they have died for us.
From every tongue and nation they have died for us.
From every race and region they have died for us.
And in the equality of their resting place, we have only one word for them: American.
Requiescant omnes in pace, et lux aeternam luceat super omnes. Amen.
-xxx-
PAUL S. MARCHAND is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California, where he served for two terms as a member of the city council. The views contained herein are his own, and not necessarily those of any entity or organization with which he is associated. They are not intended to constitute, and should not be construed as, legal advice, though effective Monday, white shoes may be worn without risk of committing a fashion felony. This post is an adapted republication of one published at Memorial Day, 2012.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Of all the various holidays that festoon our American calendar, two specifically force us to confront the reality of war and sacrifice. Veterans Day (or Armistice Day as it is still called in some quarters) should rightly turn our minds toward those who have fought in our wars, facing foreign shot, foreign shell, and foreign steel on our behalf. Veterans Day is a time to think about the moral and social debt we owe to those who have gone to war and returned.
By contrast, Memorial Day is a time to commemorate those who have fallen in this country’s service. It is time to give thanks for their service, but also a time to think carefully and critically about larger questions of war, peace, and the limbo in which societies often find themselves between the two, as we have found ourselves since the end of World War II.
On Memorial Day, I find myself ineluctably drawn back to words spoken more than half a century ago at West Point by Douglas MacArthur as he accepted the Sylvanus Thayer award. Addressing the Corps of Cadets, MacArthur spoke of hearing in his dreams “the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield.”
For most of us now living, America has been at war or involved in military operations for more years than she has been at peace. The soundtrack of the greater part of our lives has been “that strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield.”
Now Memorial Day began among African-American freedmen in Charleston, South Carolina as Decoration Day, a commemoration of the Union’s Civil War dead. Though the passage of nearly a century and a half has led to considerable accretions of symbolism and meaning onto Memorial Day, it began, and remains still, a commemoration of the greatest struggle for social justice in American history.
For if the Civil War began as merely a fight to preserve the Union, it ineluctably evolved into a far larger moral confrontation as Americans realized that the Union could not be saved except by overthrowing once and for all the Peculiar Institution of chattel slavery. If the Union were to be saved, it could have no more truck with the proposition that it is ever permissible for one human being to own another.
Since then, the arc of our moral universe, however long, has bent, however slowly, toward justice. Starting with the abolition of slavery itself, America has engaged, over and over again, in a series of often agonizing internal struggles over who and who is not a part of our American body politic.
It has taken more than a century to rid ourselves of the grosser inequities and iniquities of the Peculiar Institution. Even now, with an African-American president in the White House, racial insecurities continue to bedevil our political discourse.
It has taken more than a century to accept the basic proposition that women ought to be entitled to all of the badges and incidents of first-class citizenship. Women’s suffrage means little if women can legitimately discriminated against in hiring and compensation or be denied access to basic reproductive autonomy or contraception.
We are still involved today in a great struggle over whether America’s queerfolk should even be allowed to exist, let alone enjoy first-class citizenship as out people in the Commonwealth.
Yet, the arc continues to bend toward justice; it continues to bend toward a more perfect Union and a more inclusive Commonwealth, even if some in our society find themselves apoplectic at such a prospect. But a society that cannot find room for people of color, for women, for the queer, and for all who are in some way Other, is a society that has yet to do right by those whose final resting places are to be found in our national cemeteries, who in this country’s service laid down what Abraham Lincoln so movingly called “so costly a sacrifice on the altar of freedom.” We must make it right, especially for those whose sacrifice winds up being long deferred, whose fatal forfeit comes up for payment long after the battle is over.
Still, making it right has to involve more than trite, anodyne, talismanic invocations of “thank you for your service.” Every time I hear such an expression, I think I want to scream. “Thank you for your service” is emotional kitsch; it sounds like something we might say to a doorman or a skycap, while proffering some sort of miniscule gratuity. “Thank you for your service” reflects a dangerous societal view of our service members as being in some way a disposable commodity. Perhaps the sheer length of our military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan has deadened us to the reality of war. We have forgotten General Sherman’s warning that “war is hell... its glory is all moonshine.”
Indeed, our tendency to treat those who have borne the battle as disposable commodities in a grimly reductionist economic analysis may be at least partly responsible for the epidemic of suicides among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. A 2010 study by the Department of Veterans Affairs, released last year, indicated that veterans were taking their own lives at the staggering rate of 22 a day. Such a number ought to shock us. For these are the casualties of the invisible wounds of war, the emotional wounds that kill slowly. If we were to consider death by suicide as combat related, the number of Iraq and Afghanistan war dead would easily double. Yet what can we say to the returning veteran who comes home feeling an anguish so deep no tears will come, a pain so overwhelming that there are no words to describe it?
Doing right by those who have borne the battle must involve more than trite forms of words. If Dostoyevsky was right to observe that we can judge a society by entering its prisons, we may equally judge a society by the extent of its compassion toward those who fight its wars. By that measure, we are still falling short. We have become inured to the idea of a constant state of military hostilities, and we have built around our civilian souls a Chinese wall by which we may hope to insulate ourselves from those equally ongoing realities of war, injury, and death.
Yet the more strongly we build that Chinese wall, the more we harden ourselves and wall ourselves off from the capacity for compassion and empathy. Sadly, many of us appear to have become as hardened and indifferent to the sufferings of our servicemembers as residents of high crime inner-city neighborhoods become habituated to gang violence. Our wars are bereaving us of some important part of our humanity, if only we knew exactly of what we were being bereft.
On this Memorial Day, as we recall the sacrifice of those who fell for us, we should remember two things. First, let us remember that America is always at her greatest when she seeks purposefully after justice. Second, let us remember that from the earliest days of our history, those who have died for America have been of every sort and condition of human being.
Male and female they have died for us.
Old and young they have died for us.
Straight and queer they have died for us.
From every creed and confession they have died for us.
From every tongue and nation they have died for us.
From every race and region they have died for us.
And in the equality of their resting place, we have only one word for them: American.
Requiescant omnes in pace, et lux aeternam luceat super omnes. Amen.
-xxx-
PAUL S. MARCHAND is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California, where he served for two terms as a member of the city council. The views contained herein are his own, and not necessarily those of any entity or organization with which he is associated. They are not intended to constitute, and should not be construed as, legal advice, though effective Monday, white shoes may be worn without risk of committing a fashion felony. This post is an adapted republication of one published at Memorial Day, 2012.
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