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US Demonstration in Amsterdam

I went to a demonstration in Amsterdam against the Trump administrations lawlessness. Not many people there, but it is a foreign country and I felt like I had to be there.

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It is the time of day that the clock original became broken

Finally trump did something I more or less agree with. He lifted sanctions on Syria. Why do I feel the need to mark the one good thing that he did? Because marking the bad things are too exhausting. By design.

I also have not seen the details. Maybe they're terrible somehow?

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Enforced disappearance has begun

Obviously the dreariness of it all has put a staff on my ability to write. The moment to shout has come and gone. Now it is fine to shout forever.

Forced disappearance is when the state takes and holds people outside the law and against their will. It's wrong to say that this has never happened in the United States. But this is the opening salvo in a new wave of despotism, most likely it's most dangerous.

More has been written than I can easily match. I think it's worth noting, and maybe that's all I am doing now. This is a time stamp.

Things are moving in that direction faster than I figured, but I had been warned. You only need to hear a few times from Masha Gessen to have heard the warnings.

Yesterday, the president of the United States and the president of El Salvador made light of their conspiracy in the garishly redecorated White House in obvious defiance of the supreme court.

I don't have the energy to provide perspective.

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Begin ye the descent into the shelters

So it has happened again. The US has chosen to go along with another round of a Trump administration. I regret that my prediction is now that anyone who is expecting more of the same, whether they are a Trump supporter or an opponent is going to be disappointed. And I do mean disappointed.

If you are a supporter, you will not get what you thought you were voting for. Fear not, you can once again blame the failure of Donald Trump to become whatever you projected on to him somehow on the Democrats.

If you are an opponent, you are either far too complacent, or even if not complacent, misunderstanding the nature of what is to come.

For this will not be the first Trump administration.

For that matter it may not even be the last.

My earlier prediction, since 2016 has been thus... The institutions of democracy will hold! The mechanisms that were put in place over the decades will act like the road-side guardrails they are often likened to and prevent the hurtling runaway car that is US politics from plummeting off the side of road and into the chasm of despotism.

I think that the common metaphor, "guardrail" is really the best one there is. The guardrail is an effective, reliable means of preventing a wayward car on a windy road from killing all of it's occupants.

Once. And only once.

My prediction was that "they will hold", and they did hold. But now comes the second part of that metaphor, doesn't it? Because once the guardrail has been used, and the passengers saved, it has been destroyed. It must be rebuilt. A new one must be constructed.

To extend the metaphor, the Biden years were the ambulance showing up, taking everyone to the hospital, followed by a tow truck dragging the wreckage down to the scrap yard.

During rush hour.

That's it. The guard rails are gone. They are a mangled heap curling off into the darkness below.

Under no circumstances may the accuracy of any predictions, past or presence, to be taken as a form of defeatism. You will fight. I will fight. Even if we lose. Even if we can't figure out how.

Seasons greetings!

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The advantages of being a pessemist

It seems my pessimism regarding the French elections was premature. I know it is cliche, but the advantage of being a pessimist is that you are rarely disappointed and on occasion elated.

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I'm sitting in a cafe in Amsterdam where a "Free Palestine" parade just stumbled by. Those who know me probably find it strange for me to post about it like this. It's a small group saying the same old chants. Didn't even look like students. And they are screaming in English, the leader possibly American.

This is still going on amidst a horrific week in American politics, where the supreme court granted the president virtual immunity from criminal prosecution. As I write the French are voting for the largest share of fascists since the second world war. The only bright light was the British elections which finally sent the Tories packing, but thanks to the Tories, Britain has become more irrelevant, especially in European politics.

To be sure, I understand where the anger around the war in Palestine comes from. It's a serious, intractable, ongoing problem that has never had many solutions and they grow more scarce by the day. I have always held Israel as the greater perpetrator but this is an over simplification and also becomes less relevant by the day.

All this energy going into meaningless gestures that nobody cares about for a problem happening thousands of kilometres away. It's not even the biggest problem.

But anti semitism, and it goes without saying anti muslim stuff, is going on right here. Just Friday I sacrificed a sock scrubbing a hateful anti Israeli remark from a wall in my climbing gyms changing room. A friend showed me pictures of his neighbours door covered in something red surely meant to resemble blood because they placed a modest Israeli flag in their window.

If we cannot create a unified front to fight off right wing extremism it will be far worse for Palestine. It will be worse for those dwindling numbers of Israelis fighting against fascism in Israel. We will all suffer and more.

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American chill

A few minutes ago, Joe Biden, the President of the United States of America gave a brief comment regarding a Supreme Court decision that was handed down today. The right-wing justices on the court granted absolute immunity to the office of the presidency in its execution of any action considered to be official. The Supreme Court has anointed the office of the President as a King above the law.

This was the most chilling political speech I have ever witnessed in my life. This President is not what frightens me. It is the President that will be should Donald Trump win this election. The noose is closing. There is not yet much time.

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Wondr

Yesterday I took a break with my lady and to something in Amsterdam Noord called Wondr. It was an odd exhibit that obviously was made for pre-adolescent girls. Mostly everything was in pink or purple and you are meant to do silly things and take photos of yourself in this surreal pastel space with bouncy castles, ball pits and the like. My niece might like it if she brought a friend. Not as many pre-adolescent girls as you might think.

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Abroad

So much has happened since my last post that it has become this giant burden that deters me from trying to catch up.

I left San Francisco, indefinitely. I don’t know for how long. I originally was going to keep the house, but it seeing as it was difficult to find a company that would manage a building with less than 3 units (I have only 2), and the sad tales my friends who manage buildings remotely told me, I opted to sell. There was much suffering in the preparation. As it stands, I am entering a contract to sell the house to someone who bid over my asking price, so what is there to complain about?

Most significantly, my mother died on September 23rd, an hour before I was to fly to New York to be with her. It’s ok as we had said all the things that need said.

I am residing in the West of Amsterdam Oost. The space is smaller than what I left behind, and less comfortable, but it what was expected. I am actually paying much lower rent than I intended, so really really all is well.

It’s taking forever to settle in. You need a Dutch bank account to do anything, and you need to have a BSN (like an SSN), and in order to get that you need an appointment with the Amsterdam city hall. That took two months to get as they are still backed up from the pandemic. Also, no BSN, no health insurance. Things are coming together this week. The bank account was finally opened last night (Saturday). It should take a week for the health insurance to get set up. Then I can live a little more.

In the future, I should go back to doing those short little bullet point posts I used to do.

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Watching history repeat itself in real time

I am watching the March 19th 1943 episode of Time Ghosts World War II. It comes on the week where we learned that Donald Trump desired the same degree of loyalty from his general as Hitler received from his.

The timing for me arriving at this episode is perfect as it details Operation Spark, a March 13th plot by Wehrmacht staff to assassinate Hitler.

Indeed, I want the same loyalty from our military as Hitler had from his.

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No respect for precedence

Yesterday the Supreme Court showed no respect for 200 years of precedent on gun control. Today they show no respect for 50 precedent on women health. Nobody should expect respect for any legal precedent ever again.

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Waiting for health care

It's odd given that I probably have the best health care insurance they give out that I can never seem to get a hold of my doctor. So hard in fact, that I have not been able to reach him at all and am resorting to a remote urgent care interview.

What this means in practice is that my home is now a doctors waiting room.

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It catches up with me

Sad that I got my booster Sunday because now I am testing positive for COVID.

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Second booster

Yesterday I returned to San Francisco from New York and New Mexico. The first thing we did was go look for a second COVID booster, which we got. I am not beginning to feel the effects from it.

Last Sunday we left from New York to go to Taos, New Mexico. It was enjoyable. Very beautiful. We managed to avoid the smoke from the fires.

When I left my folks place on Saturday I may have said goodbye to my mother forever.

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Hungary declares "emergency powers”

It seems that the keynote speaker at the Republican CPAC convention has been bequeathed emergency powers on Tuesday. Ostensibly these powers are given in order to deal with the consequences of the war in Ukraine. This is how it’s done. This is a kind of goal for them isn’t it?

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My increasingly Polish lifestyle

I haven’t been writing enough about what happens in my blog. There was much over the last couple of months. I am in New York and tonight it was Polish dinner night at Karczma. I was told that Poles like to drink all the sweet wines and liquors. I had the honey wine/liquor and wonder why I don’t stock it myself.

Dalej Drużyno!

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Let’s stop apologizing for authoritarians

The war instigated by Russia against Ukraine is the most dangerous conflict of the 21st century and of most of our lives. This is what has happened: Russia, an autocracy, invaded a neighboring country without any justifiable provocation whatsoever in order to dismantle a weak democratic neighbor.

All the other reasons are either irrelevant or lies.

It is not a secret that I am a resident of San Francisco and for the last month or so had to endure participating in or overhearing many discussions where someone is trying to minimize the behavior of the Russian government while making false comparisons between its actions and the actions of Western governments and NATO. I invite people who would make such arguments to take this moment a reflect on what are their values.

What are my world values

I have come to where my values are today through many stations (not all of them ones I wish to remember), but my beliefs about how we should live with each other in this world today are centered on human rights and humanitarian law. I do not have the mind-power nor space on this page to describe in detail what it means, but there is much literature on the subject and if you want a crash course, you can start with the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

One can arrive at human rights from multiple foundations. My foundation is American Jewry. Central to my experience as a Jew is knowledge of centuries of persecution culminating in the Nazi Holocaust. It is this history that informs my believes about my world values and the importance of human rights and international law.

I also spent six (and more) years working within the human rights community across many countries and learned about how different people arrive at the same place from other foundations.

In my world view a war of aggression, by which a foreign government tries to take territory or change the government of a neighbor by force is one of the most heinous acts there is.

These things have real meaning to me, and is part of what forms the core of my being.

The cause of the war is authoritarianism

The Russian government is an authoritarian government in a way that none of the other governments in Europe are authoritarian governments. Many countries have imperfect democracies, such as Ukraine, or lean toward authoritarianism, such as Hungary. However, no other country in Europe is as militarized and undemocratic as Russia is.

Authoritarianism, not coming from the consent of the governed, is by its very nature lawlessness. Existing in this kind of arbitrary state invites or even requires corruption. Authoritarians are not accountable to the wider people and have exploited the weaknesses and at times avarice of Western countries to corrupt them as well.

Authoritarian nations will look to war as a solution to political problems sooner than less authoritarian ones.

NATO expansion did not cause Russian authoritarianism

One of the justifications that Putin apologists give for why we should be sympathetic toward Russia’s supposed security interests is that this was is a predictable reaction to the eastward expansion of NATO into the former Soviet bloc countries. I reject this as the cause of this war. There is reasonable discussion to be had where we can weigh the relative wisdom or provocativeness of the NATO expansion. It is something I myself am not really comfortable with, and have in the past argued against. But it is the more authoritarian state that will seek conflict and force as a solution to perceived threats and injustices more readily than a less authoritarian state. And it is not NATO expansion that caused Russia to become authoritarian.

Russia became authoritarian of its own agency. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was itself an authoritarian regime that did not enforce a just law on its people. It was a corruptible and corrupted regime. When the fall of Communism came, the corruption continued during its transition from a poorly planned economy to a resource-based kleptocracy. Post Soviet Russia was becoming an authoritarian state once again from the very beginning.

Some people, my past self included, has tried to blame Western triumphalism for the failure of Russia to develop into a healthier nation. I will not defend some of the ways in which Western advice and guidance did contribute to some of the errors of that time, but each former Eastern Bloc country made their own choices, some better than others, and most have turned out more free and prosperous for their people.

Russia would still be an authoritarian state even if NATO had not expanded.

Russian insecurity is not the national interests of her neighbors

Another excuse given for Russia’s war against Ukraine is that NATO represents a threat of invasion, and Russia is sensitive because of its long history of being invaded.

Russia is the largest country in the world. It is a territory that spans two continents and contains countless sub-nations and ethnic groups. This suggests that on balance Russia has been an invader more than it has been the victim.

Furthermore, between Russia and Ukraine, only one of those has been invaded in the 21st century, now for the second time.

When we consider Russian security in the face of this history, and only see this as a conflict between Russia and The West, we erase the existence of all of the countries between them. We ignore the history of all the countries that were forced to be part of the Soviet Union or live under Soviet domination for almost 50 years. We forget Poland. We ignore the places that used to be Finland until 1941. We turn our eyes from the brutal Soviet repression of Hungary in 1956. Czechoslovakia was never invaded in 1968.

Ukraine used to be part of Russia

The United States of America used to be part of Great Britain and Flanders used to be part of the Netherlands. This list goes on for much longer.

Stop changing the subject

When you say “what about the US and Iraq” or other ostensibly comparable situations you are changing the subject. It is entirely possible that one can be against the US invasion of Iraq and also oppose the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These two events, which one may see as related, are still distinct.

It’s a serious problem that there does not appear to be any way to hold the United States accountable for what it did in the middle east. It is not the only serious problem presented by some of the things the United States has done (or sometimes not done). The same can be said for the recent histories of many countries. Some of these things we have held those places to account, and others go without consequence.

The inability of the world to hold the US to account does not mean that it should stand idly by and allow further injustices to occur. The fact that the US has committed recent grievous acts does not mean that we should not support her when she acts justly, nor that we should stop trying to find ways to bring justice to her shores as well.

Use your energy to find meaningful, effective change

Even though The Western countries are not the ultimate causes of the invasion of Ukraine, if you have taken it upon yourself to try to be an agent of change, to hold these countries accountable for their poor behavior that contributed, even if not decisively, to the emergence of this war, do so in a pragmatic and optimally effective way.

I think that one of the most effective things we can do to help Russia and in so doing help ourselves is to push for international financial reform. I have been convinced that financial deregulation in the Western states, and in particular the English speaking states, has contributed to the growth of corruption and Authoritarianism in the former Eastern Bloc, and in turn, has allowed Russian oligarchs to corrupt western democracies.

This kind of corruption cannot be stopped by one country acting alone (although, changes in some countries would have more impact than others) and requires the kind of international cooperation that many of our leaders have finally demonstrated when faced with the ultimate crisis.

International finance reform would hurt the oligarchs the most, but would also require confronting the worst practices of greed and power concentration within democracies themselves.

Love Russia

I do not hate Russia. It’s a terrible generalization to make, but Russians are some of my favorite. I’ve known Soviet Russians, I’ve known Russian Russians, I’ve known Ukrainian Russians. Russia is home to the basest scoundrels and the noblest hearts in the world (sort of like Long Island, New York).

I studied the Russian language and culture in High School and am proud that I can still read it (poorly) and speak it (even more poorly).

Russian people are complicated, and many genuinely hold onto strange beliefs and ideas, but they are a people like any other. We must obviously distinguish between the people of Russia and their authoritarian leadership, who precipitated this unpopular and destructive war.

But right now, above all,

Long Live Independent Ukraine