Op-Ed
In his novel 1984 George Orwell invented the expression “newspeak” to describe the ambiguous or deliberately misleading use of language to make political propaganda and narrow the “thought options” of those who are on the receiving end. In the context of today’s political discourse, or what passes for the same, it would be interesting to know what George would think of the saturation use of “anti-Semitism” as something like a tactical discussion stopper, employed to end all dispute while also condemning those accused of the crime as somehow outside the pale, monsters who are consigned forever to derision and obscurity.
The Israelis and, to be sure, many diaspora Jews know exactly how the expression has been weaponized. Former Israeli Minister Shulamit Aloni explained how it is done “Anti-Semitic”…”its a trick, we always use it.”
Donald Trump’s campaign and presidency have been marked by extreme controversy, divisiveness, and partisan polarization. Many contend America hasn’t been this divided since the Civil War. Shortly after 2016’s election, comedian Cecily Strong played CNN’s chief political analyst Gloria Borger in an SNL skit, repeatedly complaining Trump “is not normal.”
In fact, one of the rare things an overwhelming majority of Americans can agree on nowadays is that Trump and his reign are outside of the presidential norm. Whether you voted for him or not, are a Republican, Democrat, or independent, love him, hate him, or are neutral, there is general consensus among the electorate, media and punditocracy that Trump and his governing style are different from anything we’ve seen before.
In many ways it is painful to reflect on the year 2018; a year of vital opportunities lost when so much is at stake.
Whether politically, militarily, socially, economically, financially or ecologically, humanity took some giant strides backwards while passing up endless opportunities to make a positive difference in our world.
Let me, very briefly, identify some of the more crucial backward steps, starting with the recognition by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in January that the year had already started badly when they moved the Doomsday Clock to two minutes to midnight, the closest it has ever been to ‘doomsday’ (and equal to 1953 when the Soviet Union first exploded a thermonuclear weapon matching the US capacity). See ‘It is now two minutes to midnight’.
Here in Charlottesville, as in most places, we like our stories simple. Most books by local author John Grisham have good guys and bad guys. When a UVa sports team wins, everybody says “Yay, we won!” When it loses, three-quarters of the people say “Boo, we lost!” Reality that gets messier than a coyote and roadrunner adventure gives us trouble.
When we’re fed a fictional tale of sexual assault at a UVa fraternity by Rollingstone magazine, we like to declare that every other tale except that one is true or, alternatively, that every other tale is, just like that one, false. We’re less comfortable with the notion that a lot of tales are true and a lot of other ones false, and yet other ones partially true and partially false. It seems too sloppy. What are people supposed to wear, gray hats? How do we distinguish the angels from the demons, the bunny from the lisping hunter?
We particularly struggle with our national and international news stories that involve someone local dying: Humayun Khan, Otto Warmbier, Heather Heyer.
Christmas Day. Very late on this day and into the morning of the 26th in 1776, George Washington led a surprise night crossing of the Delaware River and bloody pre-dawn attack on unarmed hung-over-from-Christmas troops still in their underwear — a founding act of violence for the new nation to proudly remember as the progenitor of either the crimes of its “special” forces all over the globe or of peace on earth, I can never recall which.
A more useful memory is certainly that of the 1914 Christmas truce, which was actually more than one truce that year and in the subsequent years of the Great War. This is a true story of people not just managing to speak to each other but actually becoming friends with not just people they had a disagreement with but people who a moment before and for a longtime running had been trying to murder them. It’s a story of war enemies figuring out that the actual enemy is not any people but war itself. And they did it on Christmas. Maybe we can do something good on Christmas too.
Sign this petition to The City Council of Charlottesville, Virginia:
Divest all public money from weapons companies, major war profiteers, and fossil fuel companies.
Sign Here.
The City of Charlottesville has approximately $3 million invested in fossil fuel companies ($1.4 m in energy company bonds, plus approximately $1.6 m through funds invested in by Charlottesville’s retirement fund). It may have about the same in weapons companies, as it has $1.1 m directly invested in four “aerospace and defense” companies: Boeing, Heico, Honeywell, and Moog. Boeing and Honeywell are two of the biggest war profiteers including through the wars of Saudi Arabia that even the U.S. Congress is now turning against.
Yes, is the unfortunate answer to the obvious question: The whole time that Charlottesville has discussed possibly considering finding the nerve to take down a couple of its many offensive statues, has it been investing public dollars in the mass killing of dark skinned people and the general destruction of a habitable planet?
Belgium has joined the list of countries that are rebelling against their elected leadership. Over the weekend the Belgian government fell over Prime Minister Charles Michel’s trip to Morocco to sign the United Nations Migration Agreement. The agreement made no distinction between legal and illegal migrants and regarded immigration as a positive phenomenon. The Belgian people apparently did not agree.
When I popped open the old laptop, the Geek Squad guy said maybe I should dust it off.
He slid a canister of Endust toward me. “Spray the cloth,” he said, “not the machine.”
I started choking on my sense of humiliation. This poor baby was covered with dust. How could I be so careless and lackadaisical toward the technology at the center of my life? And I hadn’t even realized the extent of my indifferent maintenance until the computer crashed and I had to rush it to the tech doctor.
I had been in the process of writing a column. I was researching the Central American refugees recently tear-gassed as they struggled toward the U.S. border. They were fleeing the violence and hopelessness in their countries, traversing 1,000 miles or more on foot, often with small children in tow, to find … something better.
I had wanted to reach into the core of this situation, reach into the barbed wire and tear gas canisters and the words of Donald Trump, who saw them as perfect scapegoats for the nation’s problems: the enemy of the moment, bedraggled, desperate and hungry. Terrorists, keep out! He would protect America from them.
Charlottesville is interested in improving its image after a bunch of hate-filled ralliers successfully google-bombed it. Now you search for the name of our town and you find images of all these people who don’t live anywhere near here and were apparently visiting here on their very worst day in terms of morality, wardrobe, and spelling.
What can Charlottesville do to change the subject? Even finally finding the nerve and the decency to remove the redundantly labeled “racist war monuments” would only remind people of the fascist rally and leave behind all the other racist war monuments — which make up all the monuments across Charlottesville unless you count Lewis and Clark as non-racist peacemakers.
Newly glorifying — with some tweaks! — long-dead plutocrats who enslaved lots of people or came up with imperialist Doctrines for Latin America seems tricky at best. I wonder how much of my tax dollar is going to pay a PR firm to mull that over. Any amount is too much.