BELOW NORMAL TEMPERATURES will continue through Tuesday. Coastal areas will remain cooler with occasional to persistent low clouds and periods patchy, coastal drizzle. Gusty winds will promote elevated fire weather threat this afternoon for zones 276 [inland Mendocino County], 283 [Trinity County] and 264 [Lake County]. A warming trend will begin mid next week. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A foggy 55F on the coast to start this Monday morning. Patchy fog & clearing skies sums up the forecast this week. The onshore flow will keep wildfire smoke to the east of us it looks like.
NOTE: Pacific.net has been down all day. Apologies to those of you trying to reach us, although the apologies should come from Pacific, which remains incommunicado.
A LARGE CROWD turned out for the annual TriTip Barbecue & Silent Auction/Fundraiser at the Boonville Fairgrounds Sunday afternoon. Proceeds go to the Anderson Valley Volunteer Firefighters Association. Most attendees attributed the larger than average turnout to the widespread appreciation of the local first responder volunteers for their impressive response to Thursday’s Grange Fire and associated firefighting. Very well deserved. (Mark Scaramella)
LETS GIVE ROXY OF ROCK SEAS FARM FUSION A SHOUT OUT.
For the past 2 nights she has been cooking breakfast for firefighters so her restaurant is closed for the 2 evenings. She prepared 200+ hardy meals to be in Boonville at 4:30AM to feed crews working on the Grange Fire. When she is back open please give her your support! I asked if she took pictures but she was to busy feeding all thise heros to think about it.
LOCAL RESIDENTS LOOK TO TURN ABANDONED SCHOOL INTO REDWOOD VALLEY REC CENTER
by Monica Heuttl
A group of citizens in Redwood Valley have come together to create a community recreation center at the abandoned Redwood Valley School Campus. Marybeth Kelly, a retired Eagle Peak Middle School math and science teacher, has done a remarkable amount of research on campus history and on Ukiah Unified School District policies. Kelly spent the past few years contemplating how to open a community recreation center on the Redwood Valley campus. This year, she seriously ramped up efforts, meeting weekly with a group of like-minded citizens. They started an informal steering committee, meeting every Monday at 10:00 am. Marvin Trotter, M.D., who was instrumental in founding Ukiah’s Alex Rorabaugh Recreation Center, has thrown his weight behind this effort.…
BETH SWEHLA, AV Future Farmers of America
Really proud of these FFA officers, President Samantha, Vice President Jennifer, and Treasurer Allen, who helped serve and cleanup at the Mendocino County Farm Bureau dinner tonight. They provided a service, saw friends, and made some important contacts in Mendocino County. Great job!
LAZARUS (Willits):
“The $13.3 million contract” such a deal.
Something seems weird about the PHF contract. Initially, when old Howard in Willits was aggressively lobbied for by the then Sheriff, the estimate was over 19 million to remodel old Howard, and that was several years ago.
How is it possible, with inflation and materials cost presently, can the PHF get built for 13.3mi? Did the committee downsize the number of beds, or is something else happening?
Oh yeah. Didn’t Measure B spend 5mil for a 4-bedroom Crisis Residental Center in Ukiah? That place is small compared to the PHF project.
I must be missing something…
New flags at the Courthouse. The old ones served honorably, but were shabby and ragged. Thank you Carole Hester for bringing need to my attention.
REGGAE ON THE RIVER RETURNS
by Paul Modic
It’s Reggae Week again (August 2nd to 4th at County Line Ranch), which used to be like our national holiday around here, the annual celebration when hippies, growers, and all the rest of us back-to-the-landers poured in from the hills, reconnecting with our friends and neighbors for a day of sun and music with the big stars of reggae music.
The performers liked to come to Southern Humboldt, the weed capital of the world, as marijuana was their religion as well as ours, and lots of money flooded into community organizations and rural schools, running their annual fundraising food and drink booths, artisans selling their homemade creations, and profits for the Mateel Community Center (MCC) to fund their/our entertainment programs, other events, and to rebuild after the original building burned up in an arson fire in the 1980’s. (It was also an opportunity for local bands to play, sometimes at nine in the morning.)
In the early years we just packed a few joints and other goodies, drove down to the site near the county line, and randomly parked along both sides of Highway 101. We walked half a mile or so to the entrance booth, bought our tickets for ten bucks (this week three-day tickets are $299 in advance and $349 at the gate), and followed the throng of happy hippies walking into the dusty and exciting bowl at Frenches Camp, joining thousands of other revelers for a day of music, dancing, and working in the booths with other volunteers, including the hundreds necessary to put on the show. (Later, the casual and unorganized parking along the highway was prohibited, and shuttle buses were run to the site from Garberville, Redway, Benbow, and the campgrounds.)
After some years the event expanded to two days, then three, and it got so huge and popular that some of those working on the event for the Mateel split off and started a production company to run it for profit, with a fat cut for the Mateel.
Then came the Reggae Wars in 2006 and 2007 when Peoples Productions and the MCC battled in court for ownership of the event after heated contract negotiations ended in stalemate, and divided the community: Were you with Peoples or the Mateel? (There were rumors of outlaw selling of wristbands by insiders, and pocketing thousands, that kind of graft probably inevitable, as there was so much cash floating around.)
After many months of drama, everyone wanted to stop fighting and a settlement was reached: Peoples took over the event and started an alternate festival just down the river from the original site, calling it “Reggae Rising.” The Mateel kept the name “Reggae On The River” and received a cash payment, while the Southern Humboldt community, the vast majority supporting the Mateel, was shocked that a private company could take over our non-profit’s main fund-raising event.
There has never been a public reckoning about what really went down with that community conflict, it was such a bitter and devisive experience that few wanted to delve into it deeper. Eventually the polarizing memories faded, people moved on and mostly healed friendships and families, and a fragile peace returned. (Seventeen years later, this rundown of a moment in time, lacking many details, may still be upsetting to some, as it had been such an emotional issue.)
The Mateel eventually restarted the festival when Reggae Rising fizzled out, put it on at Benbow once or twice, farmed it out to “High Times,” and when that didn’t work cancelled it for several years, and now it’s back!
Is putting on Reggae crucial for the Mateel Community Center’s survival? Is Reggae this year risking the Mateel’s survival? Will it be a joyous and profitable event?
Over the years Reggae became more for out-of-towners than the community event it started out as, and was for its first thirty years, and still takes a lot of local volunteers to put it on. I hope it works out and is a smashing success, in this era when music festivals are struggling to be profitable, and even to keep existing.
(Backstage note: I first became aware of the glory of backstage when at one concert I went up to Jerry S, told him I wanted to give some weed to the bands and he put a special wrist band on me, then showed me into the hallowed area. Whoopie, was I finally an “insider?”)
ED NOTES
I THINK I was about 12 when I went to a county fair in Hillsboro, Illinois while visiting my maternal grandparents. I wasn't ready for the experience, especially a sideshow advertising a “half man, half woman,” which I assumed was a creature as depicted in the painted promo at the exhibit's entrance — one half was a bearded man, the other half a lipsticked woman. I paid 25 cents to get in.
I'VE never quite recovered from the sight, a sight I, as a young kid, should not have been permitted to see. Pushed to the front of a leering crowd of hooting adult male degenerates — many women will say there's no other kind — a beaten down human-type person propped itself on a table, pulled up its dress and there, midship, was male equipment on top of a vagina, or what I presumed was a vagina given my age and the context. There commenced volleys of lewd banter between the hermaphrodite and the whooping degenerates, some of it aimed at me of the “Take a closer look kid,” variety in the few minutes the depressing oddity exhibited its twofer curse before disappearing behind a grimy curtain to await the next crew of voyeurs.
THAT CARNIVAL also featured a professional boxer, an old heavyweight, who knocked out a series of local tough guys, most of them drunk, who'd paid to climb into the ring with him.
I CAN'T IMAGINE the annual Boonville Fair enlivening its entertainment fare with these two acts, but they'd be sure to draw the crowds.
YOU'LL never read it in the Press Democrat, but Sonoma County atheists have included Luther Burbank, Jack London and Charles Schultz. Yes, Charles Schultz of Snoopy and Charlie Brown! And if this information isn't shocking enough to the town that has built a tourist draw around the cartoon figures, their creator, Mr. Schultz, was a socialist.
SONOMA COUNTY'S late Irv Sutley, told me that when Doc Spock of child rearing fame appeared in Santa Rosa during Spock's run as the Peace and Freedom Party's presidential candidate back in '72, Irv, functioning as Spock's host at Peace and Freedom Party events, remembers arranging a meeting between Schultz and Spock at Schultz's request.
MENDOLAND'S once plentiful cast of public cranks doesn't seem to have been replaced. I find myself nostalgic for The One True Green, Richard Johnson, the only Northcoast Green ever to have been arrested for riding his bicycle drunk. Rummaging through my memory box, I found this wonderful letter-to-the-editor from the late OTG:
EDITOR: “Like no other issue, gun control is a smoldering ember of the civil war, with the north favoring regulation, and the south opposing it. While gun proponents argue their case from the Second Amendment of the US Constitution, they are really founded on the terms of surrender at Appomattox, in which the rebel army troops were allowed to keep their weapons “for hunting.” We all know who they hunted.
“This weekend in Ukiah, there will be a gun show at the fairgrounds. If you want to see the militia, the Aryan Brotherhood, the gangbangers and the corrupt gun dealers, they will all be there. There will be a lot of confederate flags and bumper stickers declaring Hillary Clinton Wanted Dead Or Alive.
“The Republicans in the House have announced the assault rifle and automatic gun ban passed ten years ago will be allowed to die next year without bringing it to a vote. There will be virtually no limit on guns, other than the registration requirements which can be avoided by buying direct from a dealer at a gun show.
“There was a recent court decision which allows local governments to ban gun shows in their jurisdictions. But the Mendocino County supervisors have never heard of it. Also, the fairgrounds are operated by the state of California. They could also ban such events on their property. So why don’t they?”
WHY IS THERE A HOUSING SHORTAGE? Why aren't there a range of beneficial public programs that would lessen life's heaviest burdens for most of US? Apart from the grim fact that our lawmakers are funded and owned by the people who own the country, but also because not all Americans pay their fair share of what was once assumed to be our common load, that the proportional tax system that reigned when America was at its most prosperous, when working people could afford a cabin at the lake and vacations on one salary. All that top-to-bottom prosperity has been rolled back, all the way back. People who make $80,000 a year pay proportionately a lot more in taxes than the people who make upwards of $500,000. The well-to-do and their reps from our interchangeable political parties have, since FDR, gradually exempted the rich from toting their fair share of the social load.
CALIFORNIA STUPID, AND HOW I GOT IT
by Tommy Wayne Kramer
Down South people think all Californians are either gay or work in Hollywood; we forgive them as they forgive us for believing all southerners are racist, uneducated redneck brutes.
Caricatures of our fellow citizens are not likely to withstand much scrutiny, but I will say that after three years careful study of my new neighbors and the invading hordes of west coasties some stereotypes do apply.
They see Californians as foreign creatures, visitors from a strange land. I have found it best to approach slowly, with both hands upraised about chest-high, palms out. “Howdy y’all!” I cry out, cheerfully. “We come in peace. We come bearing gifts of free cocaine and sexually transmitted diseases. Would you like to sell your house?”
The big thing in the south compared with California is money. In almost every transaction the advantage comes when you leave here and go there: gasoline, food, cigarettes, and of course real estate.
When you sell your doublewide in Calpella and move to another state you will have a lot of money in your pocket. You will be shocked and thrilled to see your bank account, and there’s no reason not to show off your newfound wealth.
Being filthy rich for the first time it is understandable you’ll want to flaunt your money while also letting all your new neighbors know that you are from California and are now slumming.
Many of us have traveled the same financial route after exiting the Golden State, and the manner in which we spent money has come to be known as “California Stupid.”
Some tips: Buy twice the house for half the money you sold your shack for in Laytonville and you’ll have plenty of cash to spend on a hot tub down south. (NOTE: Down there the words “hot tub” translate to “Beverly Hills hotshot.”)
Next stroll around your new neighborhood with a French Bulldog ($15,000 each) with a rhinestone collar, and hand out trinkets (CBD candies, vape kits and crack pipes for the kids) and invite their parents to join you in the hot tub. “Clothing optional!” I leer in my wolfish way.
There are other techniques to show everyone that west coast migrants are better than their new neighbors. (We’re from California, we just can’t help it.)
California Stupid means never missing an opportunity to brag about how much better west coast cuisine is compared with BBQ-anything. Talk a lot about the Warriors and Dodgers and how great San Francisco will be once its political leaders finally get rid of all the racists.
Talk about how hard you’re working to “Turn the state purple” wink wink.
California Stupid is going to the Kentucky Derby and telling everyone you think horse racing is no different from staging dog fights (which you also courageously oppose) and that PETA should sue to prevent racing in any form.
California Stupid is apparent when you demand a vegan pizza at Jack’s Pizza Shack, established in1964.
California Stupid is when you plant two dozen palm trees in your front yard in Tennessee, and California Stupid is also when you blame the Mexican gardeners when your palm trees die.
California Stupid is suggesting all vehicles involved in NASCAR events conform with NHTA exhaust emission regulations, and that by 2025 all vehicles must be solar and/or wind powered.
How I got rich…
Some people think getting ahead in life is a matter of luck and random factors favoring people born wealthy.
Too many people believe that. But when I was in North Carolina recently I found there are rules in life we can all adapt to pave the road ahead and enhance our happiness and well-being. In my case, I went from modest debt to $7 million in the bank. I’m now here to share with my Ukiah friends.
It wasn’t magic. It took hard work and determination. Things I started to do, and continue doing, to ensure I’m in a position to succeed:
1) Set the alarm for 4 a.m. every day of the year.
2) Wake up, take a cold shower.
3) Breakfast: One quart of ice cold water.
4) Make and maintain contacts. Nothing equals knowing people you can help, and vice versa.
5) Sister died, left me $8.7 million.
6) Seminars and conventions bring together successful people who share tips and inside information. Do not miss a seminar!
7) Run six miles before dinner.
8) Run six miles after dinner.
9) Repeat.
(Tom Hine authors this weekly ordeal and TWK gets both blame and credit. They live together, sort of, in both CA and NC.)
CATCH OF THE DAY, Sunday, July 28, 2024
SCOTT FABER, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, ADAN FERNANDEZ-RUIZ, Cloverdale//Ukiah. Failure to appear.
EDUARDO GARCIA-LOPEZ, Ukiah. DUI.
ISAAC GLAVIN, Ukiah. False imprisonment.
MICHEAL HUGO, Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation.
LUIS MAGANA-ALVAREZ, Ukiah. Grand theft, stolen property, conspiracy.
ANAISEL MARIN-JUAREZ, Ukiah. Stolen property, conspiracy.
LORENZO MARTINEZ, Ukiah. County parole violation.
LARRY MILLER, Eureka/Ukiah. Trespassing.
IVY STUBBLEFIELD, Eureka//Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, resisting.
JESUS TEPALE-RAMIREZ, Ukiah. DUI.
MYCHELL VEGA-AYALA, Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation.
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
I bought a compound bow at a local second hand shop for $7. Then I picked up a dozen dowels at a discount store and a bunch of nickel silver spoons at Goodwill for 25c apiece. The spoons I’m fashioning into arrowheads, and for feathers we have plenty of wild turkeys around here always dropping feathers. So far I have 3 arrows complete, with about $12 invested into the whole project. Like I explained to my wife when the Zombies show up it's gonna take more than lead to stop them, it's gonna take silver, German Nickel Silver made in Meriden, Ct.
“Create a place for people to live like human beings, instead of slaves to some bullshit concept of Progress that is driving us all mad.”
— Hunter S. Thompson
THINK ABOUT IT
Sunday in Ukiah
Warmest spiritual greetings,
Following a reunion Saturday night with a long time friend who drove up here to see his 90 year old grandma, a quiet Sunday morning dawned with the insufferable heat wave abated. I mean, one could actually breathe normally outside of the air conditioned motel room. Walked to the co-op for a nosh and coffee, and bought two scented votive candles. Then walked over to Safeway and purchased LOTTO tix.
At this time I have invites (after my August 5th motel exit date) from Penobscot Bay Watch in Maine, and to be at the anti-nuclear war vigil in front of the White House for the sixteenth time. I have no certainty insofar as solid housing is concerned at present. This body-mind complex is 74 years young. It's not like it can just hop on Greyhound and show up, as has happened previously. On the other hand, all of the experience, wisdom gained, and power that we have accumulated on the spiritual path is at hand. Think about that.
Meanwhile, my dream wish is to win LOTTO money so that we can finance ecodefense efforts, and also maintain a presence at the D.C. vigil. This is crucial. Much love from the Mendocino Coast.
Craig Louis Stehr
Royal Motel
750 South State Street, Ukiah, CA 95482
Telephone Messages: (707) 462-7536, Room 206
Email: craiglouisstehr@gmail.com
JAMES HODGE:
JD Vance is like Forrest Gump if Forrest Gump spent the whole story complaining about how everyone treats him like the creeper he clearly is. I just read his book. It’s the one never changing theme from beginning to end. He has since childhood creeped folks out and they shunned him for it.
Hillbilly Elegy is about a guy who spends the entire book complaining that first his “Hillbilly” family treated him like an outsider. Then at school he was treated like an outsider. Then his mom’s dozen’s boyfriends and husbands all treated him like an outsider. Then he joined the marines and was treated like an outsider. Then in college he was treated like an outsider. Then in grad school at Yale he was treated like an outsider.
Despite all of this he never asks himself, am I just a creepy and mostly unlikable weirdo? What am I doing to make all the people I meet treat me as an inauthentic booblehead? Should I consider being a better person? He never once asks these questions. The shocking lack of self awareness is mindblowing.
"ONLY SUCKERS worry about saving their souls. Who the hell should care about saving his soul when it is a man’s duty to lose it intelligently, the way you would sell a position you were defending, if you could not hold it, as expensively as possible, trying to make it the most expensive position that was ever sold. It isn’t hard to die.”
— Ernest Hemingway
ALEIDA MARCH KISSES AND TELLS ALL in New Memoir about Che Guevara, Herself and the Cuban Revolution
by Jonah Raskin
In one of her best-known songs, Tina Turner, the “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” asks, “What’s love got to do with it?” For Che “it” was everything. His second wife, Aleida March, provides much the same idea in her story of romance and revolution, perhaps the most romantic of reveries. Now 87 and older than the Cuban Revolution — and more than 50 years after the death of Che who died at the age of 39 — March has written a memoir that might be called an official version of her life as “Mrs. Guevara,” as she was sometimes called.
Remembering Che: My Life with Che Guevara was originally published in Spanish as Evocation: My Vida al lado del Che. (“al ado’ translates as beside. That she was.) Her memoir has just been republished in the US by Seven Stories in an English language edition translated adeptly by Pilar Aguilera. Over the course of the last few years, Seven Stories in New York has published Che’s MotorCycle Diaries and his diaries of the Congo and Bolivia. March helped with editing and by writing introductions to those volumes.
In Remembering Che she pours out her love for Che, for their children, who are now adults, for the Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro and the world-wide movement against imperialism. A loyal comrade, March would surely echo Che who said, “At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love.“ March probably would not have added the phrase “at the risk of seeming ridiculous.” True love and true revolutionaries were never ridiculous in her world-view
Remembering Che offers a rare and never-before-seen portrait of the Argentinian-born doctor who became Fidel Castro’s right hand man and who helped to overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Bautisa. At the same time, Aleida also depicts Che in familiar poses as a larger-than-life hero of the revolution. In her book, she relies on her own memories and recollections (she expresses some doubts about the record she provides). She also uses Che’s own words and seemingly contradictory statements.
On the one hand, he called himself “a tough guy” and “the future in progress.” On the other hand, he noted that he was “an adventurer and a bourgeois.” He might have added that he was also a bureaucrat, at least when he served briefly as the president of the Bank of Cuba, which issued currency that included his signature. Aware that he was viewed in some circles as a “mechanical maniac,” he also noted that as a leader he had to repress “personal feelings.” That goal proved to be impossible. “My need for you is virulent,” he told Aleida. He could sound like a teenager in love.
Aleida writes that Che was not present for the execution of “counterrevolutionaries.” Wikipdea says that he reviewed the appeals process and the firing squads.
In many ways, Che and Aleida shared a traditional courtship and marriage. Before their wedding, and when Che still had a wife and child in Argentina, they often slept in separate rooms and separate beds, Aleida writes. When he went to work in his austere office as bank president, March usually stayed at home to raise their children, attend to domestic duties that included paying the rent, cooking and cleaning. She also worked for the Cuban government as Che’s personal secretary, a position she guarded like a lion.
On occasion, she accompanied her husband on diplomatic missions when he met for example Salvador Allende in Chile. Sometimes March was excluded by Che himself from government meetings, an act she took personally and that triggered her insecurity and jealousy. She complained.
Aleida reveals almost all and tells almost all; she names her gynecologist, though she does not describe sex with Che. She, too, could be bourgeois as well as an adventurer. She enjoyed wearing stylish clothes and retiring her drab guerrilla fatigues. Aleida went out of her way to wear a white dress at their wedding ceremony, and like a dutiful wife she cared about her husband’s grooming and appearance. He didn’t mind his funky attire and must have smelled of the pipe tobacco and cigars he smoked and that didn’t help his poor health. He was an addict to the end of his days, devoted to his pipe.
Aleida, who was born in 1936 and raised in Cuba, was a decade younger than Che. As a young woman, she served as a foot soldier in the revolutionary war and went on dangerous missions for the guerillas, transporting cash and explosives. Initially a Cuban nationalist and an anti-communism by her own reckoning, she served in the clandestine urban network. Che’s first wife, Hilda Gadea, and his parents thought of Aledia as a girl “from the sticks” and said so.
In some ways, Che and Aleida enjoyed a traditional marriage. He went to the office while she stayed at home, raised their children, and cooked and cleaned. In hindsight, Aleida sees Che as a rather conventional lover who clammed up when he might have been candid. Born in the clandestine, their relationship was defined by the clandestine, even after the revolutionaries came into power. Such is in the nature of underground life. Once secrecy and subterfuge starts it’s hard to stop. Aleida managed to carve out what she calls an “intimate space” where their relationship could grow and be nourished.
What is to be gained from reading Aleida’s memoir? That revolutionaries are not what they seem to be, that making a revolution is more difficult than rebels imagine, and that love born in a bourgeois society doesn’t lose its bourgeois roots, though the lovers try.
Aleida has kept the Che flame burning brightly ever since she learned that he was assassinated in Bolivia at the hands of Bolivian soldiers and the CIA. Now, the head of the Che Guevara Studies Center in Havana, she has witnessed, she says, the collapse of the global socialist camp, the rise of “hegemonic neoliberalism” and the coming into adulthood of her and Che’s children who do their part to invigorate and sustain Cuban culture. Remembering Che ensures Aleida a secure place in the pantheon of Latina revolutionaries.
Jonah Raskin is the author of Beat Blues, San Francisco, 1955.
FRED GARDNER: William Blake, who wrote the book about Marxism that didn’t make you (or me) fog over, was the husband of Christina Stead, the great Australian-born novelist. Characters who resemble Blake appear in many of her books. He had been a very successful grain trader and banker but after the mid-1930s was strictly a writer — historical novels, heavy political analysis, a wonderful almanac produced during WW2 called “An Intelligent American’s Guide to the Peace.” He wrote a biography of Garibaldi that never got published and a manuscript called “Imperialism.” (Blake was a Communist, BTW.) I was mad for Christina Stead (still am). At some point I tried to track down Blake’s unpublished material but I didn’t try very hard. (Regret #74.) . There’s a terrific biography of Stead by a woman named Hazel Rowley.
BANK BOOK
The first edition of Christina Stead's 795-page novel, "House of All Nations," published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston in 1938, did not sell out. It was reissued in '66, in anticipation of a Christina Stead revival that didn't happen. Her novels are not exciting –the crises and turning points aren't emphasized much more than the mundane situations that lead to and ensue from them. She can people up and drop them off anywhere in time.
Stead was born near Sidney, Australia, in 1902. Her mother died when she was two-and-a-half. She was raised by her father, a naturalist. From high school on she was a prolific, ambitious writer. She worked as a teacher, moved to London in 1928, and got a clerical job at a bank. The man who hired her, William Blech, was an American leftist/businessman who became the love of her life. He was a writer, too, publishing under the named William Blake.
"House of All Nations," Stead's fourth book, describes the operation and collapse of a private Paris bank, The Banque Mercure. The mercurial chief of the bank is Jules Bertillon, 39, a decorated aviator married to an heriess. He is generous with money because he thinks he can always make it. Along comes Henri Leon, a great grain merchant and womanizer who has a scheme to sell sterling short. The plan is explained to Jules by Michel Alphendery, a Marxist who handles the important clients' stock accounts. He is modeled on William Blake.
Leon is impressed by Alphendery's precision and Jules's interior decorating. Idlers fill the lobby following the market quotations. An unsuccessful swindler and an American writer discuss the likelihood that the bank engages in contrapartie operations (betting against its clients by not actually placing their stock orders). Aristide Raccamond, a broker who had been involved with a bank that failed, insinuates himself into the Banque Mercure by offering to work only for a commission. His ambitious wife, Marianne, instructs him to investigate the bank with an eye towards blackmailing his way to power. "Money, money, Marianne; there is something else in life besides money," complains Raccamond, a sentimental jackass. "Not to pay the rent with," she replies.
Raccamond badgers Jules for a balance sheet to show his clients. Jules refuses. "Anything in black and white commits you, even if it's the truth. The more mysterious the business, the handsomer it seems." He regrets having employed Raccamond. "The best people for me are dopes and communists. Dopes are grateful to you for keeping them because they're dopes and communists because you know they're communists. But the ambitious dull guy that's found you out and wants to punish you for the good years he wasted learning a game that didn't exist..." This is prophetic. Raccamond keeps snooping and striving, but he is not taken seriously. "A swindler with no sense of humor is lost," someone comments.
Henri Leon returns to discuss another scheme: a board of grain merchants to make all Britain's wheat purchasees. "The English public will love it," he predicts. "It looks like a lukewarm amateurish stab at nationalization." His real goal is a decoration of some kind, a badge of nobility. He courts the Spanish Republicans and all the socialist leaders of Western Europe in the hope of getting medals and decorations at bargain rates if and when they come to power.
Jules tells Leon, "You and I both believe in altruisum Henri, because altruism is selfishness out with a pair of field glasses and imagination." Jules frequently talks straight. "No rich man is a patriot," he says, "no rich man a friend. They all have only got one fatherland --the Ritz-Carlton; and one friend --the mistress they're promising to divorce their wife for." He toys with the idea of taking all the loot and vanishing. His adviser, Alphendery, begins arranging for a neat bankruptcy, but Jules says he means to abscond with all or nothing. Jules teases Alphendery about Russia: "Did you hear the latest, eh? Piecework is paid for! Al, they're wonderful advertisers. They've got the Genghis Khan technique. You know: glory... Stalin's a smart one. He runs the state and lets the workers get tired out building dynamos and then he teaches them to sing songs about Lenin... I wouldn't go and shoot the Russian worker. His mouth's stopped for 50 years."
The workaday life of the bank continues. A clerk takes a collection to buy a wedding present for the head bookkeeper. Two pushy German emigres are allowed to claim an association with the bank, which is a help in shifting their commodities business to France. Clients and petty blackmailers ask for overdrafts, letters to help evade taxes and other favors. With a retailer about to open a chain of bargain basements, Jules dreams up best-selling items. His droodles are money-making ideas. A drunken countess complains that the bank owes are 239 francs. Alphendery examines the account and finds that she actually owes the bank some money; but Jules makes the adjustment in her favor. Police pursue a young Chilean grandee --a rapist-- and Jules assigns Raccamond to whisk him onto the Brussels-bound train.
Against the urging of Alphendery, Jules enters into a bet with Jacques Carriere, who is making payments on a brewery he inherited. Jules consents to make the future payments in francs at the going rate of exchange (so that if the pound is devalued he will be paying the difference). Carriere had an unrequited prep school crush on Jules. The bet is a "modern duel," and news of it spreads in financial circles.
Raccamond is upset because a high-class client has lost money to some American gamblers she met at the bank. He wants Jules to close the doors to "gangsters," but Jules explains, "every banker is a poker shark but the Eddie McCaheys are the poor fellows who don't get away with it."
Leon springs into the bank with an intricate scheme to make $10 million in wheat. It involves forming several consortiums, convincing Russia --which has a wheat surplus-- to buy instead of selling, and arranging for American bankers to discount Russian bills. Leon, who has always "feared partnership with the mercurial Gentile and, as a result, been mulcted entirely by Jews," now wants the bank to front for him. Jules goes in reluctantly. "No great swag was ever made out of commodities," he feels. "To make a fortune you've got to steal it, with nothing honest at the back of it. All great fortunes are financial... come out of the air." Jules assigns several incompetent flatterers to pursue the wheat scheme, and they blow it entriely. Leon is heartbroken.
On September 18, 1931, the pound goes off. "People talked of a foreign conspiracy and 'attacks from abroad' on the pound, Englishmen always having the strange illusion that (far from their living coming from abroad), happy nations and bandit races are always trying to rifle the boundless treasure of the little island." Carriere begins collecting on the bet and needling Jules with gossip-column items.
Aristide Raccamond installs a man loyal to him as accountant in the bank's Brussels branch. A solemn hysteric, he can't help spreading rumors of fraud, mismanagement and impending bankruptcy. He lines up a position for himself at another bank "to keep a door open." At last he confronts Jules with the contrapartie books (stolen by his agent in Brussels) and demands a virtual partnership "to safeguard the clients." Jules faces him down, but Raccamond is recharged by his wife, "the real Raccamond." He panics and starts a run on the bank by urging his clients to withdraw their accounts. He tells the police that Jules is about to abscond. They sweep down on the bank, only to find that everything is business-as-usual.
Jules makes two last unsuccessful gambles, then he decides to skip for Estonia, leaving nothing for the employees (whom he had always intended to give six months pay). "Some of the clients tried to sue the employees for knowing the state of affairs and not immediately reporting it to the police; but this, it was explained, would only result in the world being turned upside down and the complaints were dismissed."
Alphendery goes to work for Leon as private secretary (mascot, sounding board, beard). Leon informs him that he was never a real insider at the Banque Mercure. "No, no my boy. You don't know the whole story... No one tells the whole story... Only Jules knows it."
BALLOT BATTLES, LAWSUITS AND A TICKED OFF MILLIONAIRE - WHAT’S BEHIND THE EUREKA’S PARKING LOT WAR?
by Ben Christopher
Long before irate local business owners began descending on public meetings, before opponents filed four environmental lawsuits warning of snarled traffic and rampant crime, and before a local finance tycoon with a penchant for political controversy decided to fund a ballot measure campaign that would upend everything, city officials in Eureka thought their proposal was a real no-brainer: Turn some city-owned parking lots into affordable housing.
Hugging Humboldt County’s Lost Coast some 280 miles north of San Francisco and 150 miles west of Redding, Eureka is strapped for places to live. The county has more homeless people per capita than anywhere else in the state, with a disproportionate share living on the street — a problem that’s especially conspicuous in downtown Eureka. Like every California city and county, Eureka is also on the hook under state law to scrounge up space for new housing. The downtown economy could use a little goosing too.
The parking lot-to-affordable-housing plan was supposed to tackle all those problems at once. More housing. More foot traffic downtown. A satisfied California Housing and Community Development Department. Yes, the planned developments would leave the area with more people, more cars and fewer spaces to park, but that, city officials have said, is a worthwhile trade-off.
“Truth be told, I would rather deal with a parking shortage than a housing shortage,” said current City Council member G. Mario Fernandez.
Not everyone sees it that way. A group of ticked off locals with concerns that ranged from traffic congestion to business viability to public safety to state overreach launched “Citizens for a Better Eureka.” They did so with the financial backing of magnate Robin P. Arkley II, whose company, Security National, manages property and trades in real estate debt and is one of the city’s largest employers. Shortly thereafter, many of the same activists qualified a local measure for the November ballot to scrap the city’s plan and replace it with one that would require any new housing to preserve all existing parking. Developers and the city say such a costly requirement is tantamount to a development ban. The initiative would also backfill any lost city center housing by rezoning a dilapidated former middle school on the other side of town.
The parking lot wars on California’s Lost Coast are part of a statewide trend of voters taking their gripes with state housing mandates to the ballot. Over the last half decade, state lawmakers have passed dozens of new laws requiring local elected officials to plan for more housing, whether they want to or not.
When these conflicts wind up in court — and they often do — courts have generally sided with state agencies.
But in Eureka, the political stars are aligned a bit differently. This is not a wealthy suburb in which elected officials are vowing to resist what they see as overreaching state bureaucrats. Eureka city officials are on the same page as the state housing department in wanting to see more dense housing downtown, parking be damned. It’s the voters, this November, who will have the opportunity to slam on the brakes.
Whether the ballot initiative, called Measure F, would actually put the city at odds with state law is an unsettled debate, one that’s now playing out as dueling political soundbites as the election approaches.
That makes the local ballot fight more than a mere turf battle over a few lots. In a spat between business and property owners, current and former elected officials, environmentalists, state regulators and a human lightning rod in the form of a local loan mogul, it’s also a story about who has the ultimate say over what a town looks like.
“I think that a lot of this is maybe not about parking lots,” said Tom Wheeler, who runs the Environmental Protection Information Center in nearby Arcata and who supports the city’s housing plan. “Parking lots are a proxy for a larger kind of identity politics issue for what Eureka is.”
Eureka’s big idea
The fate of Eureka’s parking lots hinges on a promise that the city made to the State of California in 2019.
Once every decade, cities and counties are required to lay out plans for new housing to accommodate local population growth. In the case of Eureka, a city with some 26,000 people, officials were tasked with laying the ground for 952 new units, 378 of which have to be affordable for people earning less than $46,200.
To boost the chances of actually meeting those goals, officials opted to lease or sell city-owned land to developers. They went all in on the idea, putting nearly 90% of their state affordable unit quota on 14 public parking lots. Supporters viewed such lots as abundant and dispensable. The Coalition for Responsible Transportation Priorities, a local environmental nonprofit, estimated that 34% of the “developable land” in Eureka’s downtown is set aside for off-street parking.
Initially, City Manager Miles Slattery said his office didn’t hear much pushback. In 2019, staff held a series of public meetings to find out what locals want future development in the city to look like. Most participants favored the dense, high-rise, pedestrian-centric layout common to the city’s Old Town neighborhood along the waterfront.
“It was very clear that people wanted Eureka to look like what you see in Old Town,” said Slattery. “When that happened, I didn’t see any potential for anything to be a problem.”
Slattery was wrong. The backlash began as soon as the city started taking solicitations for development and downtown business owners were suddenly facing the prospect of losing parking at specific sites.
(CalMatters.org)
BULLDOZE IT
People Hate This Huge S.F. Fountain. But…
by John King
Now that there’s momentum for a total makeover of the red-brick plateau known as Embarcadero Plaza, count me in. I only have one small request:
Don’t get rid of Vaillancourt Fountain.
Yes, I’m referring to the oft-ridiculed concoction of overscale concrete pipes from 1971, bent and contorted in angles that bring a full-on collision to mind. The fountain that, in recent years, has been dry more often than not. The one that makeover proponents, I suspect, wish would just go away.
But here’s the flip side: San Francisco is the should-be-proud possessor of one of urban America’s truly bizarre works of public art. Show some affection for the mottled tangled tubes! Rev up the fountain so that waters can gush with theatrical glee! A reimagined fountain could bloom as an exuberant tribute to how the city’s waterfront is an incomparable fusion of the present and the past.
The jumbled 40-foot tall fountain is the best reminder that, from 1958 to 1991, the downtown shoreline was hidden behind the clamorous Embarcadero Freeway — an ugly double-deck roadway that curved from the Bay Bridge to Folsom Street and pushed nearly a mile north to Broadway. Picture our view up Market Street to the Ferry Building severed by a 60-foot-tall jersey barrier.
This history explains why Vaillancourt Fountain strikes such a provocative pose, especially when its 20 or so right-angled spigots would spew 30,000 gallons of water per minute. It was conceived as “A fountain to hide a freeway,” to quote the 1967 Chronicle piece that announced the selection of Canadian sculptor Armand Vaillancourt. Big and aggressive and loud, the goal was to provide a visual distraction to the elevated ramps behind it while muffling noise from constant traffic.
From opening day in 1971, there were more detractors than defenders. Interestingly, there was similar blowback to two other head-turners of the era: Sutro Tower and the Transamerica Pyramid. The former has become a cult icon; the latter rivals the Golden Gate Bridge as a sculptural symbol of today’s city.
The freeway was dismantled in 1991, thankfully, and the Embarcadero’s healing process began. Witness the Ferry Building’s restoration and the promenade thick with joggers and strollers. The Exploratorium draws families to Pier 15.
Residential buildings at all price levels fill land along Folsom Street once shadowed by ramps. Rincon Park features a supersize bow-and-arrow and a bayside lawn where nearby residents let their dogs run free.
About the only thing that hasn’t prospered is, you guessed it, Embarcadero Center. Patchy brickwork and institutional lunch tables bolted to the periphery are no match for the magnetic pull of the waterfront show. Nor is the gaunt fountain that looms above two sandwich boards announcing “Pardon our mess/This area is closed.”
So I applaud Embarcadero Center owner BXP for hiring design firm HOK to draw up conceptual plans for how the plaza and an adjacent park could be reimagined as an enticing 21st Century gathering spot.
One where, in the renderings, Vaillancourt Fountain is nowhere to be seen.
“It was designed for a different era,” Aaron Fenton, a senior vice president at BXP, said of the plaza in general and the fountain in particular. “The fountain was oriented facing the city. It was never meant to be seen from behind.”
Phil Ginsburg, longtime general manager of the city’s Recreation and Park Department, palpably is no fan of Vaillancourt’s concrete pyrotechnics.
“We need to take a fresh look at this,” he said carefully when we spoke. “There are a series of tradeoffs.” Ginsburg also pointed out that since the last water pump broke in June, “the fountain itself is not operable. It’s dead.”
But let’s get real: Vaillancourt Fountain has suffered from not-so-benign neglect for decades. When the jets have been turned on in recent years, the water was often mixed with green or red algae killer. The concrete hasn’t received a thorough scrub, I would guess, since U2 frontman Bono spray-painted “Rock n Roll Stops the Traffic” on one of the cantilevered limbs during a 1987 lunchtime concert.
Now imagine using the makeover to celebrate the fountain as an only-in-San Francisco showcase. Install an energy-efficient mechanical system using recycled water. Bring the fountain’s backside to life with an interactive children’s play area a la Crown Fountain in Chicago’s Millennium Park.
That clever touch was suggested to me by Dean Macris, San Francisco’s former planning director. He’s politically savvy enough to know that civic works of art can’t be removed without laborious hearings. So why not turn the ugly duckling into a swaggering swan?
“Make the water more important, and make the back as appealing as the front,” Macris said. He also talked about how he tried to rally business and philanthropic support for a grand new park between Market Street and the Ferry Building when he was Gavin Newsom’s top planner in the early 2000s: “It’s the heart of the city,” he said. “We should do something spectacular with it.”
Macris was ahead of his time. Now, though, the need to reinvent downtown is front and center in the persistent wake of the pandemic; that’s why mayoral candidates Mark Farrell and Aaron Peskin, as well as BXP and the administration of Mayor London Breed, are talking up the idea of an Embarcadero Plaza 2.0.
Another thing: The eye-popping success of Presidio Tunnel Tops shows that the private and public sector, working together, can enhance San Francisco’s luster in magnificent ways.
That’s the opportunity at Embarcadero Plaza. Treat Vaillancourt Fountain with respect, and let it play a starring role.
(SF Chronicle)
KLAMATH DAM WORK AHEAD OF SCHEDULE
by Jackson Guilfoil
The project removing the four dams on the Klamath River and restoring the natural habitat is ahead of schedule, according to a Thursday news conference.
Parts of the JC Boyle and Copco No. 1 dams will likely be broken next week and the copper dam — which diverts river flows into a series of tunnels — at Iron Gate is set for demolition in the last week of August, said Ren Brownell, a spokesperson for the Klamath River Renewal Corporation.
“I do want to emphasize that this is a very weather-dependent project, so extreme temperatures can cause delays. Our crews aren’t going to be out there working and it’s above 108 degrees. Severe smoke could impact it, wildfires, things like that. But we’re presently way ahead of schedule, which is very good news for fish,” Brownell said.
This year, fish health is “relatively normal,” said Karuk Tribe Fisheries Program Manager Toz Soto, who noted that fish migrations coincided with the increase in water temperatures, reflecting the warm summer.
In before-and-after photographs capturing river conditions during restoration efforts, native plant seeding dramatically altered landscapes from vast expanses of dry, gray shale to verdant greenery dotted with orange poppies. Future plant seeding will transport large, old trees harvested alongside their roots for replanting in the basins. Additional tributary restoration work will begin next summer.
“This first season of revegetation incorporated over 66,000 pounds of native plant seeds, 78,000 trees and shrubs and 27,000 acorns and in the area that remained too muddy to support the weight of workers was seeded instead by helicopter,” Daniel Chase, director of fisheries, aquatics and design for the western region of Resource Environmental Solutions, said.
Three dams — Copco No. 1, JC Boyle and Iron Gate — remain after Copco. No. 2 was destroyed last year. Local tribes along the river from California to Oregon — such as the Yurok Tribe, the largest in California — are involved in the restoration process after opposing the dams for decades, pointing to erosion of cultural resources such as mass die-offs of salmonids. Last year’s Salmon Festival, organized by the Yurok Tribe, had no salmon because of dismal fish populations.
When complete, Klamath River restoration and dam removal efforts will be visible from space said Michael Belchik, senior fisheries biologist with the Yurok Tribe.
“The benefits of dam removal, we think, will be multiple and extend beyond just making more stream miles accessible. There are benefits to temperature regime, there are benefits to water quality, there’s benefits to geographic and genetic diversity of fish and there’s also access to stable areas of cold water which will provide for climate change resiliency of the salmon runs into the future,” Belchik said. “Dam removal is just a piece of an even larger vision and that, as I said before, is fixing the entire Klamath River.”
(Eureka Times Standard/Ukiah Daily Journal)
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY’S CULTURE OF LOYALTY
by Norman Solomon
The Biden campaign drove the Democratic Party into a ditch and speculation is rampant about grim prospects for the election. But little scrutiny has gone into examining how such a dire situation developed in the first place.
Joe Biden was on a collision course with reality long before his abysmal debate performance led to his withdrawal from the race. “Several current and former officials and others who encountered him behind closed doors noticed that he increasingly appeared confused or listless, or would lose the thread of conversations,” the New York Times reported five days after the debate. Some had noticed the glaring problem months earlier but kept quiet.
A culture of dubious loyalty festered far beyond the Biden White House. It encompassed Democratic leaders at the Capitol and across the country, as well as countless allied organizations and individuals. The routine was to pretend that Biden’s obvious cognitive deficits didn’t exist or didn’t really matter.
Because his mental impairment was so apparent to debate viewers, some notable Democratic dissenters in Congress stepped up to oppose his renomination. But for weeks, relatively few colleagues followed the lead of Texas Representative Lloyd Doggett, who broke the congressional ice by calling for Biden to “make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw.”
Heads In The Sand
Acuity came from Julián Castro, former secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Obama administration, who kept up a barrage of cogent tweets. One message referred to Biden’s “unique political liability” and warned: “It’s not going to get any better — and has a high risk of scrambling the race again, sealing Dems fate. Burying our heads in the sand won’t assuage voters concerns, which have been painfully obvious for years.”
A literal heads-in-the-sand photo was at the top of a full-page print ad that the Don’t Run Joe team at RootsAction.org (where I’m national director) placed in The Hill a year and a half ago. Headlined “An Open Letter to Democrats in the House and Senate,” it said: “Many of your colleagues, and maybe you, are expressing public enthusiasm for another Biden presidential campaign in on-the-record quotes to journalists — while privately voicing trepidation. This widespread gap ill serves the party or the nation… There are ample indications that having Joe Biden at the top of ballots across the country in autumn 2024 would bring enormous political vulnerabilities for the ticket and for down-ballot races. No amount of spin can change key realities.”
But the spin never stopped and, in fact, went into high gear this summer with Biden trying to make his candidacy a fait accompli. Meanwhile, the culture of loyalty kept a grip on the delegates who’ll be heading to Chicago in mid-August for the Democratic National Convention. As the second week of July began, CNN reported that “a host of party leaders and rank-and-file members selected to formally nominate Biden said they were loath to consider any other option.” A delegate from Florida put it this way: “There is no plan B. The president is the nominee. And that’s where I and everyone that I’ve been talking to stands — until and unless he says otherwise.”
The lure of going along to get along with high-ranking officials is part of the Democratic Party’s dominant political culture. I saw such dynamics up close, countless times, during my 10 years as a member of the California Democratic Party’s state central committee, and as a delegate to three Democratic National Conventions. I viewed such conformist attitudes with alarm at meetings of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
Democratic Rubber-Stamping
Larry Cohen, former president of the Communications Workers of America, has been on the DNC since 2005. “Currently the national Democratic Party exists in name only, and is largely the White House and a nominating procedure for the president,” he told me. “The internal life is in the 57 state and territorial parties, and important reform efforts are visible in many of them.” Cohen added: “It’s the ‘rules and not just the rulers,’ and the Democratic Party compares poorly to centrist parties in other democracies, especially with the domination of corporate and billionaire money in our nominating process at every level of government.”
Pia Gallegos, co-founder and former chair of the Adelante Progressive Caucus of the New Mexico Democratic Party, summed it up this way: “The culture of the Democratic Party at the national level is top-down in the sense that it appoints the members of its committees rather than opens committee membership to elections among the DNC delegates — and then expects its delegates to rubber-stamp approval of those appointments.”
Gallegos, who chairs the board of RootsAction, is on the steering committee of the nationwide State Democratic Party Progressives Network, an independent group that formed last year. “Democratic parties at the state level also have policies or traditions to appoint local committee members or national committee representatives, consequentially pushing out their more progressive or reformist members from positions of power,” she said. In short, “the Democratic Party leadership appears to be more concerned with maintaining their control of the party than with promoting democracy within the party.”
When it comes to their decision-making, some state parties have headed in more democratic directions — or the opposite. I’ve seen firsthand that the nation’s largest one, the California Democratic Party, has steadily become more autocratic for over a decade.
Overall, big donors and entrenched power are propelling the Democratic Party.
After Judith Whitmer became an active DNC member as chair of the Nevada Democratic Party, she got a close look at the committee’s inner workings. “Today’s Democratic Party is run by consultants and operatives who tightly control every aspect of the DNC,” she texted me. “The big-tent party that champions ‘democracy’ is actually a small circle of insiders who hold all the power by maintaining the status quo. Dissenting opinions are not welcome. Progressives are ostracized, and the everyday voter no longer has a voice.”
In early 2021, a progressive insurgent campaign enabled Whitmer to be elected chair of Nevada’s Democratic Party. Powerful Democrats in the state, outmaneuvered by that grassroots organizing, quickly transferred $450,000 from the Nevada party’s coffers to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and set up a parallel state organization. Two years later, the erstwhile party establishment retaliated by crushing Whitmer’s reelection bid.
In a Word: Undemocratic
Subduing progressive power is a key goal of dominant party leaders as they gauge when and where to strike. While nominally supporting the two-term progressive congressman Jamaal Bowman for reelection in his New York district last month, powerful party elders nonetheless winked and nodded as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee poured some $15 million into backing a corporate pro-war Democrat against him.
“The Democratic Party is, in one word, simply undemocratic,” Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of the national activist group Our Revolution, told me. “The illusion of ‘party unity’ fostered by Biden and Bernie [Sanders] four years ago is gone. In fact, the donor class feels emboldened to wage war openly with progressives, especially after defeating Jamaal Bowman.”
I saw the illusion of party unity playing out at sessions of the Unity Reform Commission that the DNC convened in 2017. The calculus was that the strength of Bernie Sanders forces, then at high ebb, had to be reckoned with. The commission had a slight but decisive majority of members aligned with Hillary Clinton, while the rest of the seats went to allies of Sanders. While the commission did adopt some modest reforms, the majority balked at substantive DNC rules changes that would have provided financial transparency or prevented serious conflicts of interest.
Overseeing the blockage of those changes was Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, the commission chair, who later worked for three years as deputy chief of staff in Joe Biden’s White House. She went on to become the Biden campaign chair.
“The Democratic Party now functions through foundation-funded advocacy organizations, and without the kind of self-funded mass membership groups that had a genuine voice with real power when the labor and civil rights movements were strong,” journalist David Dayen wrote in early July for the American Prospect. “If you read the polls, the interests of the public and the donor class are actually aligned in favor of Biden’s withdrawal. But given who’s making that case, it sure doesn’t feel that way, nor does it feel particularly small-d democratic. That makes it easy for Biden to fall back on the will of ‘the people’ who voted in Democratic Potemkin primaries, because outside of that, the people are voiceless.”
Money in Charge
Alan Minsky, executive director of Progressive Democrats of America, had this to say when I asked him to describe the party’s political culture: “While the Democratic Party is a complex organization with a lot of dimensions, I think the role of money — and, more specifically, the never-ending need to raise more money — has become its central organizing principle. This, of course, skews the priorities of the party in a conservative direction. Democrats who can raise money comparable to the levels raised by the GOP are seen as indispensable to the party, and grow in power and influence… In turn, these powerful money-raising Democrats have little use for anyone inside the party who is perceived as jeopardizing the flow of money — such as left-progressives and other advocates for the poor and working class.”
Minsky added:
“As these dynamics became central to the party over the past few decades, the rich and powerful grew in influence, and the general political culture reflected the priorities of the professional class rather than the working class, a sharp contrast to the mid-20th century, which was the height of the party’s power and influence.
“However, since the GOP only turns ever more to the right, progressives and working-class advocates continue to stake a claim in the Democratic Party. Paradoxically, since these non-wealthy groups represent the majority of the population, they also provide the best opportunity for the party to regain its majority status. However, from the point of view of the party’s dominant faction, and their legions of highly compensated consultants, this is an unacceptable outcome as it would shut down the gravy train.”
The Democratic National Committee building on South Capitol Street in Washington is a monument to the funding prowess of multibillionaire Haim Saban, who became the chair of the capital campaign in late 2001 to raise $32 million for the new headquarters. He quickly donated $7 million to the DNC, believed to be the largest political donation ever made until then.
Haim Saban has long been close to Bill and Hillary Clinton. By 2016, Mother Jones reported, Saban and his wife Cheryl — in addition to hosting “lucrative fundraisers” — had given “upward of $27 million to assorted Clinton causes and campaigns.”
Saban and Joe Biden also bonded. When Saban had an appointment at the White House last September, “the visit was supposed to last an hour, as part of lunch, but in practice he spent three hours with the president and his people,” the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronoth reported.
Reasons to reaffirm warm relations with the likes of Haim Saban were obvious. Presumably, the president remembered that a single virtual fundraiser the Sabans put together for the Biden-Harris campaign in September 2020 brought in $4.5 million. In February 2024, with the Gaza slaughter in its 135th day, the Sabans hosted a reelection fundraiser for the president at their home in Los Angeles. The price of a ticket ranged from $3,300 to $250,000. An ardent Zionist, Saban has repeatedly said: “I’m a one-issue guy, and my issue is Israel.”
This summer, while Biden fought to retain his spot as nominee, fervent support from the Congressional Black Caucus seemed pivotal. The CBC has changed markedly since the 1970s and 1980s, when its leadership came from visionary representatives like Shirley Chisholm, John Conyers, and Ron Dellums. Then, the caucus was antiwar and wary of corporate power. Now, it’s overwhelmingly pro-war and in willing captivity to corporate America.
With President Biden in distinct denial about his unfitness to run again, the role of the Congressional Progressive Caucus was accommodating. Its chair, Pramila Jayapal, endorsed him for 2024 gratuitously early — in November 2022 — declaring herself “a convert.” Since then, some high-profile progressives went out of their way to back Biden in his determination to run for reelection.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who endorsed Biden a year ago, went in front of journalists 10 days after his debate disaster to make a vehement pitch for him as the nominee. In a similar mode, Senator Bernie Sanders was notably outspoken for Biden to stay on as the party’s standard-bearer, even implausibly claiming on national television that, with a proper message, “he’s going to win, and win big.”
When some of the best progressive members of Congress fall under the spell of such contorted loyalty, it’s an indication that deference to the leadership of the Democratic Party has come at much too high a price.
(This piece first appeared in TomDispatch. Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, is published by The New Press.)
‘TWO AMERICAN FAMILIES’ IS A KNOCKOUT DOCUMENTARY
This latest installment in a long-term Frontline series is an intimate look at two American families, who work hard but struggle to make ends meet.
by Margaret Lyons
The Frontline documentary “Two American Families: 1991-2024,” arriving on Tuesday, follows two Milwaukee families, one Black, one white, over the last 30-odd years. “Families” is intimate and dignified, unwavering but gentle. At a time when so much documentary television feels generic, disposable and even straightforwardly pointless, this is both a master work unto itself and a glaring reminder of what is largely absent in television narrative nonfiction.
“Families” is the fifth installment in the tales of the Stanley and Neumann families, a long-term portrait series produced and directed by Tom Casciato and Kathleen Hughes, with interviews and narration by Bill Moyers. The specials began with “Minimum Wages: The New Economy” in 1992, after the breadwinners of each family were laid off from union manufacturing jobs. (This newest entry covers the full timeline and does not require previous familiarity.) Since then, neither family has ever truly recovered, despite ceaseless — ceaseless — hard work, as the parents, and eventually their children, all struggle to find their way into the middle class.
Faith is a huge theme here, with each family turning to religious practice as a respite from suffering and as reservoir of hope. In one scene, the white family, the Neumanns, stand on the altar as their priest thanks God for providing the dad with an $8-per-hour nonunion job with no benefits. Even that job doesn’t last. Prayers and preaching weave through the decades, gratitude for the riches ostensibly to come.
“Families” intercuts moments of everyday strain with Inaugural Addresses going back to Bill Clinton, in which each president promises jobs, jobs and more jobs, and each declares the American economy to be growing and glorious. And yet. “Despite all the hard work, these two American families had barely survived one of the most prosperous decades in our history,” Moyers narrates. And that’s barely at the halfway point in the story.
PRE-TRAINING CAMP NFL POWER RANKINGS: CHIEFS AND 49ERS REIGN, TEXANS AND BEARS ON THE RISE
by Josh Kendall
The longest offseason in major professional sports will be over by the end of the week. Five NFL teams have already opened training camp. Twenty-three more start on Tuesday, and the remaining four kick off Wednesday. The Hall of Fame Game between the Houston Texans and Chicago Bears is less than 10 days away.
So we can officially say the NFL is back, and the power rankings are just as happy about that as the rest of you. The preseason rankings start where last season’s rankings ended — with the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers at the top — but there’s been some movement down the line. The Hall of Fame Game participants, for instance, are among the biggest risers because of one young quarterback who has already proven himself and another who everyone expects to soon.
On with the top rankings on the list:
- Kansas City Chiefs
Last season: 11-6 in regular season, Super Bowl champions
The last time the Chiefs failed to make the NFL’s final four, Matthew Stafford was a Lion, Ryan Tannehill was a Dolphin and Ben Roethlisberger was an active player. That was 2017. Since then, Patrick Mahomes has won 15 playoff games (more than all quarterbacks but Tom Brady and Joe Montana) and never finished a season as a starter short of the AFC Championship Game. Mahomes is 28 years old. If he plays as long as Brady, that means 17 more years to pad what could be an otherworldly stat line.
- San Francisco 49ers
Last season: 12-5, lost Super Bowl
The 49ers are the NFL’s narrative busters. Need a top-10 quarterback to compete at the highest level? Nope. San Francisco has gone to two Super Bowls and two more NFC title games with Brock Purdy and Jimmy Garoppolo at quarterback. There are consequences for missing on a top-five quarterback? Not for the Niners. This team traded three first-round picks to draft Trey Lance No. 3 in 2021 and hasn’t missed a beat despite Lance already being off the team. Kyle Shanahan, despite his near misses, might be underpaid.
- Detroit Lions
Last season: 12-5, lost NFC Championship Game
The Lions have won more games since Nov. 6, 2022 (22), than they did in the previous 1,769 days (18). These are giddy times in Detroit, and the Lions have responded by throwing cash around, extending quarterback Jared Goff, offensive lineman Penei Sewell and wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown to big-money deals this offseason. Maybe just as importantly, Detroit retained offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, who led the Lions to the fifth-best offense in the league last season based on EPA (expected points added) per play, according to TruMedia.
- Houston Texans
Last season: 10-7, lost in AFC divisional round
For most of the NFL’s history, calling a team the Lions of the AFC would have been fighting words. Not anymore. The Texans are the cross-conference counterparts of the Lions, which is to say they are their conference’s best-vibes team. After C.J. Stroud’s remarkable rookie season, Houston is going all in behind its young quarterback, re-signing tight end Dalton Schultz and adding wide receiver Stefon Diggs and running back Joe Mixon to an offense that scored 45 points against one of the league’s best defenses in Stroud’s first career playoff game. If the Texans can survive being this offseason’s hot team, it could be a special season in Houston.
- Baltimore Ravens
Last season: 13-4, lost AFC Championship Game
The 2023 Ravens were the NFL’s best team for long stretches. The 2024 Ravens are something different. Baltimore has added Derrick Henry but lost defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald, linebacker Patrick Queen, safety Geno Stone, defensive end Jadeveon Clowney, three starting offensive linemen and about 10 percent of a quarterback. Reigning league MVP Lamar Jackson appears to have lost more than 20 pounds. Will he be the same player who has led Baltimore in rushing and passing each of the last five years? Probably.
- Cleveland Browns
Last season: 11-6, lost in AFC wild-card round
In the first four seasons of Deshaun Watson’s career, he had a passer rating of 104.5, a 2.4 touchdown-to-interception ratio and was off target on only 6.4 percent of his throws, according to TruMedia. It’s why the Browns sent three first-round picks, a third and two fourths to the Texans to acquire him. In two seasons in Cleveland, Watson has a passer rating of 81.7, a 1.6 TD-to-interception ratio and has been off target on 15.8 percent of his throws. Last year’s Browns still won 11 games. If Watson and running back Nick Chubb (coming off a knee injury) can return to form this year, Cleveland will be a contender.
- Dallas Cowboys
Last season: 12-5, lost in NFC wild-card round
In the last three seasons, the Cowboys have won 36 regular-season games and one playoff game. Owner Jerry Jones is so fed up that he … did basically nothing this offseason to improve the team. Head coach Mike McCarthy is back (with a new defensive coordinator — Mike Zimmer, who replaced Dan Quinn). Linebacker Eric Kendricks and running back Royce Freeman were Dallas’ only free-agency additions. Plus, quarterback Dak Prescott will be playing with a $55 million cap hit and in the final year of his contract this season because the Cowboys don’t seem concerned about getting an extension done.
(The Athletic)
GUNMAN AT TRUMP RALLY WAS OFTEN A STEP AHEAD OF THE SECRET SERVICE
Text messages, obtained exclusively by The Times, indicate that some law enforcement officers were aware of Thomas Crooks earlier than previously known. And he was aware of them.
by Haley Willis, Aric Toler, David A. Fahrenthold & Adam Goldman
Nearly 100 minutes before former President Donald J. Trump took the stage in Butler, Pa., a local countersniper who was part of the broader security detail let his colleagues know his shift was ending.
“Guys I am out. Be safe,” he texted to a group of colleagues at 4:19 p.m. on July 13. He exited the second floor of a warehouse that overlooked the campaign rally site, leaving two other countersnipers behind.
Outside, the officer noticed a young man with long stringy hair sitting on a picnic table near the warehouse. So at 4:26 p.m., he texted his colleagues about the man, who was outside the fenced area of the Butler Fair Show grounds where Mr. Trump was to appear. He said that the person would have seen him come out with his rifle and “knows you guys are up there.”
The countersniper who sent the texts confirmed to The New York Times that the individual he saw was later identified as the gunman.
A countersniper with local law enforcement first noticed Thomas Crooks nearly 100 minutes before the shooting and texted two colleagues about his presence.
By 5:10 p.m., the young man was no longer on the picnic table. He was right below the countersnipers, who were upstairs in a warehouse owned by AGR International. One of the countersnipers took pictures of him, according to a law enforcement after-action report, which along with the texts from the Beaver County Emergency Services Unit was provided to The Times by the office of Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa.
At 5:38 p.m., the photos were shared in a group chat, and another text went out among the officers, saying they should inform the Secret Service. “Kid learning around building we are in. AGR I believe it is. I did see him with a range finder looking towards stage. FYI. If you wanna notify SS snipers to look out. I lost sight of him.”
By 6:11 p.m., the “kid” would be dead on the roof of a warehouse connected to the one the countersnipers were stationed in, after having been shot by the Secret Service for trying to kill a former president.
Taken together, the text messages provide the most detailed picture yet of the hours before the assassination attempt. They reveal that the gunman, later identified as Thomas Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pa., aroused police suspicion more than 90 minutes before the shooting, rather than about 60 minutes, as has been previously discussed in congressional hearings.
The messages also add to the evidence that the would-be assassin was often one step ahead of security forces, and in particular the Secret Service.
Mr. Crooks scoped out the rally site a day before the Secret Service did. He used a drone to survey the site while the Secret Service did not seek permission to use one for the rally. He researched how far Lee Harvey Oswald was from John F. Kennedy when he fatally shot the president in 1963 — the answer is about 265 feet — and managed to climb onto a roof that was about 400 feet from Mr. Trump at its closest point. The Secret Service left that roof unmanned.
And while countersnipers were assigned to surveil the rally, Mr. Crooks was also in a position to watch them.
Even after the episode ended, the police seemed confused about what Mr. Crooks had done and how.
“So, on TV, they’re saying Trump was shot at, and he got hit, but I don’t believe that,” one local police officer said to another 17 minutes after the shooting, in a conversation captured on a body-worn camera.
As the officers in the video walk toward the warehouse on which Mr. Crooks’s lifeless body lay, one can be heard saying, “I’m trying to figure out how this guy got here.”
Investigators are still trying to determine Mr. Crooks’s motivations and his actions in the days before the rally, in part from what they have found on his personal devices. But the texts and footage, combined with interviews by The Times and public testimony by investigators, have filled in some of the answers.
Mr. Crooks already had the AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle he brought to the rally. He purchased it in October from his father, who had acquired it legally in 2013.
He began to receive packages at his house in the Pittsburgh suburbs, including fertilizer pellets and radio devices. He would later use some of this material to build rudimentary bombs, two of which were found in his vehicle after the shooting and another in his home.
Mr. Crooks had started searching online for information on famous people, including the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, President Biden and Mr. Trump. He also looked up “major depressive disorder.”
On July 3, Mr. Trump’s campaign announced the rally in Butler for 10 days later, and Mr. Crooks narrowed his focus to the former president — and to past assassinations.
On July 6, Mr. Crooks typed in an ominous phrase.
“He did a Google search for ‘How far away was Oswald from Kennedy?’” Mr. Wray told a congressional committee last week.
The next day, Mr. Crooks drove to the farm show grounds, about an hour from his home. He spent 20 minutes there, investigators said. He also registered to attend the rally.
Secret Service agents would not hold their first walk-through until the following day, July 8, joined by law enforcement officials from several local and state agencies.
It was then that the Secret Service decided to exclude the entire warehouse complex owned by AGR, including Building No. 6, which Mr. Crooks would later use, from its inner security perimeter. This meant that on the day of the rally, Mr. Crooks was able to approach the building without passing through security screening.
There is still confusion about which agency was supposed to oversee the roof. Kimberly A. Cheatle, then the director of the Secret Service, told a House committee on Monday that she did not know whose job that was. She resigned the next day.
After their walk-through, the Secret Service had asked local agencies to provide more help. Text messages show that Beaver County struggled to find enough volunteers to cover the 12-hour shift. A leader says that one of the available snipers could arrive at 8 a.m. but would need to leave by 4 p.m.
“That works,” another leader responded in the texts.
On Thursday, July 11, the Secret Service returned to the site for a final walk-through with its
The next day, Mr. Crooks made his own final preparations. He went to a shooting range, the Clairton Sportsmen’s Club, around 2:30 p.m., and practiced with his AR-15-style rifle.
On Saturday morning, July 13, the timelines of the security personnel and the would-be assassin converged.
Officers from several local law enforcement agencies were scheduled for a briefing at 9 a.m. at the Brady Paul Lodge in Butler, according to a plan shown in the text messages. The after-action report indicates the Secret Service was not in attendance.
At the same time, Mr. Crooks was at the Home Depot in Bethel Park purchasing a ladder. A bloody receipt, found in the shooter’s pocket after he was killed, showed he bought it around 9:30 a.m.
Then Mr. Crooks drove to the rally site, reaching the show grounds by around 10 a.m. and staying about 70 minutes — even as the local countersnipers were arriving.
When Mr. Crooks left, he drove back to his hometown and bought 50 rounds of ammunition at Allegheny Arms & Gun Works. Then he returned to Butler, arriving at the farm show grounds in his Hyundai Sonata at about 3:35 p.m., according to geolocation information from one of his cellphones. About 15 minutes later, he flew his drone over the site for 11 minutes, including in a path about 200 yards from Mr. Trump’s podium.
He finished using his drone and sat at the picnic table, where the countersniper spotted him.
Mr. Crooks walked to his car, left the drone inside and was soon hanging around the warehouse complex.
Unlike the other visitors, he was not trying to enter the rally site through the security checkpoints, a fact that attracted the attention of the local countersnipers inside the warehouse. One of them took photos of him at 5:14 p.m.
Col. Christopher Paris, the Pennsylvania State Police commissioner, testified in a congressional hearing on Tuesday that officers were busy that day, responding to more than 100 heat-related emergencies. There were also other suspicious people whom security officials were trying to assess at the rally, which is not unusual for such events, Colonel Paris said.
But then, Mr. Crooks did something that alarmed the police. They saw him using the range finder.
A Beaver County countersniper shared two photos of Mr. Crooks with his colleagues at 5:38 p.m., which were then relayed to the Secret Service, through a series of steps in the command center.
One of the two remaining countersnipers “ran out of the building attempting to keep eyes on Crooks until other law enforcement arrived,” according to a statement by Richard Goldinger, the Butler County district attorney, who supervises some of the law enforcement units.
But Mr. Crooks ran off, taking a backpack with him, Mr. Goldinger said. When the officer was unable to find Mr. Crooks, he returned to his post.
Four Butler Township police officers who had been directing traffic joined the manhunt.
At 6 p.m., one officer in the group texts guessed that Mr. Crooks was moving toward the back of the complex of AGR buildings, “away from the event.” Instead, Mr. Crooks clambered onto the low-slung building in the complex closest to the stage.
Mr. Trump took the podium at 6:03 p.m., to a roaring crowd.
Six minutes later, rally attendees began pointing to someone on the roof of the warehouse. Either through luck or preparation, Mr. Crooks had found a place on the roof that let him see Mr. Trump clearly, but also seemed to keep him somewhat hidden from the Secret Service countersnipers.
Though Mr. Crooks did not bring his newly purchased ladder, he managed to climb onto the roof and walk across a complex of interconnected roofs, Mr. Wray testified.
The Butler Township officers had no ladder themselves, so one officer boosted up another, who grabbed the roof and pulled himself up — to find Mr. Crooks pointing a gun at him. With no hands left to pull his own gun, the officer dropped.
At 6:11 p.m., Mr. Crooks let loose his first rounds.
In the end, Mr. Trump was spared not by the vast law-enforcement contingent protecting him, but by chance. He turned his head, and Mr. Crooks’s first bullet whizzed by close enough to graze his ear.
The former president dived to the ground, and Mr. Crooks sent off another round. The second Secret Service sniper team fired back, and killed Mr. Crooks.
The body-camera footage shows officers climbing a ladder to find Mr. Crooks lying dead on the roof: a slight man, wearing black sneakers, a T-shirt and cargo shorts. His backpack and rifle lay nearby. A long trail of blood ran from his body down to the roof’s gutter.
“Looks like, what, at least eight,” one of them says, counting shell casings around him. “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. At least eight.”
(NY Times)
HELP THE PALESTINIANS? SOME ILLUSIONS, AND A LONG SHOT.
by Michael Neumann
Many people are looking for words to capture their outrage, disgust, anger, desperation when inundated with reports, often graphic, about the slaughter of Palestinians. But do you want to do something about it?
There are two ways to look at “doing something.” One is to seek the bit of satisfaction obtained when you work towards some little thing that will help someone, maybe one Palestinian, maybe someone you treasure. You can pressure your government to get some of its citizens out of Gaza. You can pressure your government to pressure Israel to pause their operations; maybe they will do this for a few hours. Of course, in the case of the US or Germany, Israel will spend those hours unloading the mountains of munitions these countries provide for blowing up Palestinians. And of course this leaves 99% of Gazans in unrelieved agony. And it will do nothing for the Palestinians suffering increasing settler violence in the West Bank.
You might also take the question — do you want to do something about the slaughter of the Palestinians — to address the prospect of helping the Palestinians collectively. That would mean actually ending the occupation, which unrolls with escalating intensity and sadistic determination. The answer to the question would then be that there is practically nothing to be done. Well, there is one small thing, and to mention it at this point would be to see it dismissed out of hand. But before you’re confident in dismissing an oddball idea, be very clear that nothing anyone is now doing will help the 99% of the Palestinians, not one bit. It is only when that’s established that anyone might consider alternatives which otherwise will be treated with condescension or contempt.
Here are some strategies or demands which are advanced with great seriousness, and which can’t be taken seriously.
There is no point telling the world about what’s happening. The world knows. Obsessing about media bias and distortion doesn’t change that. Every major online service delivers harrowing reports. No matter what new evidence of atrocities you or Amnesty or Human Rights Watch present, it won’t matter at all. The same holds for meticulous histories or analyses or expositions of why or how Israel is bad.
There is no point calling for the enforcement of international law, the prosecution of human rights tribunals, or the activation of war crimes courts. None of this can come with expectations of enforcement because enforcement ultimately requires UN Security Council approval, and at least the US and the UK will veto any attempt to make Israel do, well, anything. The statements of UN officials and votes in the UN General Assembly will have no effect whatever. None of this even begins to help the Palestinians.
There is no point pressuring your government to sanction Israel. Your government, the one that either supplies arms to Israel, or buys arms from Israel, or both, isn’t going to do that. Your government will at most say something vaguely nice about what’s happening, or call for Israel to behave better; Israel knows that’s for show. And the electorate in your country, if it’s a Western democracy, just doesn’t care.
There is no point reaching out to nice people in Israel. Nice people in Israel have tried to change Israeli policy since before Israel even existed, always to no avail. The Israeli left has never achieved anything, and it certainly isn’t going to do so after the Hamas attack. The attack caused the left and right to close ranks. Any leftists wanting to dissent will be drowned out if not prosecuted.
There is no point sending money somewhere. The Palestinians themselves have said they have no use for money. There is nothing to buy. They can’t go out and pick up a can of water or gasoline, or some medicine.
It should go without saying that there is no point marching or demonstrating or getting violent in support of the Palestinians. This will not sway public policy, the only thing that could actually help. There is no discernable path from these calls and letters to some seismic shift in legislative or executive action, a shift so extreme as to make some government somehow make Israel stop what it’s doing. Public policy is not going to be swayed, period. Your calls, letters. and petitions will have no effect.
It doesn’t matter what the polls say. In the US, to be blunt, there are not enough Muslims in enough key voting districts for any political party to reverse its stance on Israel. In crucial electorates, there are too many partisan Christians and Jews who are not going to welcome a government toying with abandoning Jerusalem to dastardly Islamists. Where there are enough Muslims, as in France or England, they scare the mainstream into police crackdowns or marches against antisemitism. And no, it doesn’t matter at all if people have some wrong idea about antisemitism. Political activism, in any country that might in theory influence Israel, may achieve enough momentum in twenty or fifty years to change important government actions about Israel. Not sure how many Palestinians, or how much of Palestine, will be left by then.
And, in case you live outside the West, there is no point expecting BRICS to do anything. Nor is there any point expecting Arab or Muslim states to do anything. Some might like to, but they are in no position to confront Israel, especially given the West’s firm commitment to underwrite Israeli security with all the means at the West’s command. And in the absence of government action, no matter how many thousands or hundreds of thousands demonstrate, it won’t make any difference at all.
How can we be so sure of that? Mobilizing thousands would matter only if that meant the US Congress and President suddenly decided that instead of arming and financing Israel, we now have to undermine, as much as possible, Israel’s capacity to defend itself. In other words, the US government would decide to tilt the conflict in favour of Hamas and, in the eyes of the US and the Gulf States, let alone Israel, the Muslim Brotherhood. That’s not gonna happen. And there is no middle path for the government to follow, because both Israel and the US are well aware that constraining Israel in any way will make Israel pretend there is even more of an existential threat than Israeli thinking now posits.
It won’t do to invoke Israeli dependence on the US. Those who insist on it have no idea of Israel’s true might. Israel has diesel-electric submarines capable of launching cruise missiles, and almost certainly those missiles can carry nuclear warheads. That makes Israel an important nuclear power, one which could, push come to shove, mount devastating attacks on all its current supporters, including the US. Israel also supplies major components and software to the West’s most advanced weapons systems, including the F-35, the Patriot anti-missile systems, and the Trophy active protection system for the latest armoured vehicles. There is no need to fantasize about Israel fighting the US. It is enough to note that Israel could make many billions if it chose to sell some of its military products to all comers. So it’s not too clear what sanctions could possibly achieve.
At risk of repetition, it’s quite unnecessary to devote special attention to those extremely knowledgeable about the Middle East, perhaps natives, indeed perhaps Palestinians, perhaps proficient in regional languages, and/or with long experience of the Middle East’s realities. This includes both public figures, perhaps former ambassadors or cabinet ministers, but also experts who have felt compelled to, well, do something. Noting ‘really excellent’ statements by this or that recognized authority, or Israeli soldier, or courageous cleric, or relief worker bearing witness to the disaster, or an arms expert compelled by the horrors to speak out — none of this will do anything whatever, not the slightest, tiniest thing, to help the Palestinians. In Gaza they are, one might say, insulated from these excellent statements. The same holds for the excellent interviews you might get to make on tv, or the excellent op-eds you might write, or the private messages you might send, or the explainers you might offer on appropriate forums. None of this will help the Palestinians, to any degree, at all. ‘Excellent’ is not facetious here. It’s just that none of this will do any good.
I hope this suffices to establish the utter hopelessness of everything everyone has tried in order to help the Palestinians. Once that is taken in, then maybe, just possibly, some tiny bunch of people will come to appreciate that there is one little thing that could indeed be done. That only one thing now seems to far out in left field that no one, I mean not one single person, suggests it.
There is only one realistic strategy that might conceivably help — though it probably won’t. It’s backing Turkey, uncritically, without reservation, and to the hilt. This may sound silly, but so do all the “calls” on Israel to do this or that thing that it’s obviously not going to do.
There are two reasons for backing Turkey. First, given support consistent with its NATO membership, Turkey could become the one regional threat Israel would have to take seriously. Second, Turkey genuinely has the will and desire to help the Palestinians.
Why might Turkey provide a threat? It has very large and competent armed forces. If Turkey acquired the F-35s it was originally intended to receive, it could achieve parity with Israel’s air force. It already has ballistic missiles whose range is being extended to cover all of Israel. It specializes in advanced and novel drone technology as well as the development of autonomous naval vehicles. This is not a matter of what would happen if Israel and Turkey came to blows; it is a matter of whether Israel would go so far as to abandon the occupation in the case of a looming Turkish menace.
Even if Israel were to make calculations about some distant future in which the Israelis might play their nuclear trump card, they would have to entertain the possibility that Turkey might acquire the capacity to retaliate. The West would never contribute to such a program, and Iran probably wouldn’t either. But Russia, China, North Korea, and especially Pakistan, essentially out of reach for the Israelis, could be supposed to aid Turkish efforts.
As for the hostility, it seems sincere enough. Unlike the Gulf States, Jordan, Syria and Egypt, Turkey is not worried about the Muslim Brotherhood and therefore not worried about Hamas. Unlike Iran, Turkey is also not considered a threat to any of those nations. Turkey’s only real regional enemy is Syria, and Syria’s political stature is hardly considered a big concern for the US, NATO, or the EU. There is no indication that Turkey’s anger at Israel is a pose, though without further support Turkey would not complement its anger with action.
But what really makes backing Turkey a plausible alternative to ‘demands’ about Israel isn’t its military or ideological potential, but its strategic position. Today, the West’s strategic allies are not so strategic after all. The strategic importance of Israel was already undermined in the First Gulf War, when Israel could not be involved for fear of Saddam Hussein’s real and mythical SCUDs. The Gulf States, with their oil, used to be considered essential, but give America’s incredible and unexpected emergence as a leading energy provider, the West doesn’t need them that much any more. As for Turkey, the West dislikes it, and would love to keep it in its place. But Turkey’s control of the Black Sea during the major confrontation between Russia and the West means that the US and the EU most tolerate almost anything from the Turkish government.
The further the West embroils itself in confrontation with Russia (and, through their alliance, with China), the more Turkey becomes indispensable. That means Turkey will never be expelled from NATO, which in turn means the US and the EU would find it very difficult to side with Israel in a military confrontation with Turkish forces. In such a confrontation, Egypt and Jordan could be expected to at least contemplate getting off the sidelines — something they would never consider on their own.
All in all, Turkey could from one day to the next exert a pressure on Israeli policy that cannot be expected from any other quarter. It would make more sense to agitate in Turkey’s favor than to take any of the other strategies that allegedly support the Palestinians. Turkey emerges as the only plausible counterweight to Israel. This doesn’t just hold at a regional level. It holds internationally, because the West doesn’t want to do anything, and BRICS can’t do anything. But for Turkey to emerge as a counterweight, its political standing in the West needs to rise.
How this might happen depends on the politics of particular Western countries in particular circumstances. Take, for example, the US. Here there is no great obstacle to a more pro-Turkish policy. That’s because the electorate couldn’t care less about Turkey. Issues that well-informed Middle East observers might be quick to note — authoritarianism, Turkey’s pursuit of the PKK, its demands about Gülen leaders in the US — none of this is of any interest to the US electorate. On the other hand, any attempt to present Turkey as an honest broker to the Israel-Palestine conflict will founder the moment anyone points out that Erdogan came out supporting Hamas.
The big hope here, and not a crazy one, is that the West will realize how much damage it has done itself by backing Israel. It’s not as if the West need fear anything much, because it no longer needs the Gulf States or Egypt. But more and more, the West will just want to get out of the region. Recent events show that, no matter how little Western Democracies actually care about the Palestinians, they find it awkward to see them killed by the thousands. Israel, perhaps because it can or perhaps because it’s just lost it, has abandoned its previous clever policy of destroying them bit by bit.
So the US and the EU badly want a way to get Israel to tone it down, maybe even end the occupation. After all, sooner or later, BRICS will move in, and that would be a real strategic concern. What’s more, no matter what the world can reproach Turkey with, the West is expert at whitewashing the unsavory aspects of régimes it wants to use, as it regularly does not only with Israel but also with Egypt. So those seeking to raise Turkey’s stature can expect to be met half-way by Western governments.
An appropriate starting point for enhancing Turkey’s stature offers itself in the problems of immigration and refuge. Turkey has itself taken in three million refugees from Assad’s Syria; it shelters perhaps three million more in the portion of northwestern Syria is controls. Millions more want to make their way through Turkey to the EU. This has been a source of contention and contentious agreements since at least 2016. Most recently, some of these refugees are even appearing on the Mexican border after crossing the dreadful Darien Gap. If these issues can be resolved, it will open the door to better relations between Turkey and the West — with consequences for Turkey’s ability to pressure Israel.
There are many obstacles to this sort of activism, which would meet opposition from Kurdish, Greek and Armenian diasporas in the West. Supporting Turkey is no easy way towards helping the Palestinians. But it is not quite as futile as calling on international institutions or Western governments to do something.
Love the total bias of the AVA.
A picture of Liz Cheney talking about electing idiots.
And of course, they put pictures of Republicans.
What is ironic, the Cheney’s were considered the anti-christ by Democrats. Especially Dick Cheney. But once Liz decided to hate Trump and get in bed with Liberals, miraculously this all changed.
Let’s not talk about the two biggest idiots voted into office.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, Joe’s dementia was hidden from America for no other reason than to maintain power and push America into WOKENESS. And along the way to weaken this Country. Stupidity
Is the common explanation of this Biden presidency causing financial disaster and now has us on the verge of WW3.
Harris is nothing more than a DEI hire. Giggling her way through any tough question and helped keeping Joe’s condition under wraps by lying to the American public. And if you wanted to be truly fair, a picture of the anti-American squad would make sense.
But no, Bruce Anderson’s fair and balanced paper rolls on.
Liz Cheney was never in bed with liberals. Unlike you and Maga Marmon she recognized a lying, worthless, conman for what he is.
Righto. But also, my advice is to ignore the CATS (Cowardly Anonymous Trolls) such as this poor guy, who is obviously quite “tiggered” by Harris, and too afraid of even AVA readers to use his real name.
Since you “Call it As I See It”, why not do so under your own name? Otherwise, everything you espouse should rightfully be considered hot air.
Exactly. Altho I also see it as like most graffiti – anonymous, plus usually ugly and annoying, made by adolescents.
You people’s responses seem to be weird!
Isn’t that the Libtard word of the day?
More hot air; “Sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Name calling, too. The MAGA playbook in operation.
Call It, you said: “Harris is nothing more than a DEI hire…”
I know, I know…
But, some bodies are happy cause in Fla. yesterday, nearly 200,000 white women met on Zoom to build support for Vice President Harris, and there were so many of ’em the meeting crashed several times.
You seem to have us confused with “fair and balanced” Fox, where you get ALL your information.
Thanks for the note about Pacific Internet.
I got hit by the failure of Willitsonline, but kept the email “service.”
It went down over the weekend and, as you mention, their phobic noncommunication continues.
The email service returned for Pacific last night, and maybe Willits too.
Laz
PS
I just checked Willits Online and the certificate has expired. Pacific’s expired yesterday but it was renewed.
Have a nice day,
Laz
Same people that tell you it’s about devirsity, equity and inclusion voted for tribal gaming which flooded the rez with even more crank and booze. The same thing was done to the inner city black neighborhoods with crack destroying families. Now they are putting races against each other for political gain, but at the same time none of this will help the less fortunate.
https://consortiumnews.com/2024/07/29/lost-in-translation-outcry-over-the-last-supper/
Religious nuts are the worst nuts of all…
Two things. One, re: silver arrow tips against zombies. Silver projectiles and cutting edges have no special effect on zombies, compared with other metals. The writer has zombies confused with werewolves. Related, cross shapes* have no repellent effect against a vampire, nor does garlic. Also, undying creatures, the physical ones, anyway, are all subject to the /immortality trap/. Removing their head, as was done to Jack Harkness in /Torchwood/, is a gamble– it took awhile but his body grew back from it. Some immortal characters, like Vandal Savage of /Legends of Tomorrow/, can regenerate from a single cell. They can all be pickled in acid, sealed in cement or rocketed into the sun.
And 2. MCPB CEO and KZYX manager Dina Polkinghorne recently wrote about the expense of repairing/replacing shock damaged equipment, I suggest she take a 1/2 pay cut, bringing her compensation down to $30,000 a year, and just pay for a new STL or mixing board, or whatever is required, herself. That still makes every day she waltzes in and waltzes out a hundred-dollar day for her. And all she has to do for that is fake up and sign a financial report for the board once or twice a year and chat on the phone when she feels like it, where the real workers, the airpeople, are paid nothing at all for preparing and showing up for and performing all of their shows, all year long, all put together. If the airpeople are willing to work for nothing, because they’re in it for art and radio, not money, why can’t Dina Polkinghorne at least do that? Sheesh, why isn’t she willing to be volunteer entirely and take no money at all, like the airpeople, and like plenty of other noncommercial radio station managers?
She has a bookkeeper to keep the station’s books, a program director to direct the programs, an operations manager to manage the operations, a business underwriting coordinator to coordinate the business underwriting, an engineer to engineer, and plenty of people to organize fund raising, as well as all the airpeople periodically giving up their volunteer airtime to pitch for more donations to the station so management can continue to pay itself with all that money. Really, what’s left for the manager to manage, besides sitting there a certain number of days a year to qualify the station for its annual six-figure Corporation for Public Broadcasting grant?
None of the membership money goes to support the station. 2,000 members at $50 a year each is $100,000. They say, become a member and support the station and all the great shows, but just the manager and one other person in the management suite suck that much out of the station every year into their own personal bank accounts. Even so, the CPB grant and donations from rich families, about whom never will be heard a discouraging word, keep the station swimming in money. KZYX has always been more than flush and able to pay at least a respectful theatrical stipend to the local airpeople, but it never has, and never will. Does that seem right to you?
*Here’s a joke that depends on an unheard but implied apostrophe: Two nuns are driving across Transylvania on a dim foggy evening when a vampire jumps onto the hood of their car and bares his fearful teeth at them. One nun whispers to the other, “Quick, Sister, show him your cross!” The other one bellows at the vampire, “Get off our car, you goddamn fucking idiot!”