Bob Schwartz

Loyal opposition is not just a hallmark of American democracy. It is American democracy.

But whenever opposition becomes protest, and protest becomes uncomfortable and threatening, the quick fix for the simple-minded and reactionary (who don’t actually understand democracy, not really) is to label protest unpatriotic and label protesters traitors.

Many of us in America have had to sit through this movie multiple times. If you add historical incidents—such as the Red Scare of the 1950s—there are many more examples.

The latest is the new National Football League rule that players must stay and stand for the national anthem. They can’t leave the sideline, they can’t kneel, presumably they can’t raise their fists in a power salute. Stand, shut up, and play (dance).

This whole scenario was started by the President, who jumped on this as soon as the issue began last NFL season. His most recent pronouncement was that players who don’t stand for the national anthem are not just unpatriotic—they should leave the country. (The irony of the most un-American President in history—who really should leave the country—is hardly worth mentioning.)

So, no, I really don’t want to sit through this movie again. But just as in the past, there is no choice. In the past, though, American democracy—that amazing combination of Constitution and common sense—prevailed and pulled through, though it took a while. The concern this time, in this and other areas, is that balance has tipping points, and recovery of balance can be a very grueling and questionable process once it is tipped over.

LADY MACBETH:
Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the
perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little
hand. Oh, oh, oh!
Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 1

And Cain said to Abel his brother, “Let us go out to the field.” And when they were in the field, Cain rose against Abel his brother and killed him. And the LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” And he said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” And He said, “What have you done? Listen! your brother’s blood cries out to me from the soil.
Genesis 4:8-10

This was originally drafted in response to this week’s Israeli violence, in which dozens of Palestinian protestors were killed and hundreds wounded.

Then this morning, still another high school shooting, this in Santa Fe, Texas, has left at least nine dead.

Worlds apart, these are related. Whenever ideology and belief result in unnatural deaths, questions should be asked by the zealous ideologues and believers themselves. If they are completely and unconditionally convinced that their belief is worth the mortal price that others pay, then they should proceed. But whether those beliefs are religious or constitutional, they are not relieved by justification from asking the questions: Whose blood? Whose hands? Because they know—or should—that the blood is on theirs. They are the keepers of their brothers, sisters and children. Even if they don’t listen or want to listen, or they make loud excuses or evasions, the blood cries out.

Israel is under real existential threat. The modern state exists because a portion of modern Jewry was not only under existential threat, but actually found itself decimated. This is incontrovertible. Not again, never again.

But existential threat offers possibilities and opportunities. You can engage in deep, serious, measured and open consideration of exactly what that means and how to respond. Or you can treat is a license to do anything, and to reject and attack all those—even Jews—who suggest you can’t necessarily do anything. Giving a moral inch is giving a moral mile, and it is a slippery slope. This is currently Israel’s posture.

This is precisely the position of the National Rifle Association regarding guns and the Second Amendment. It is all or nothing. Even a hint that the Second Amendment might be conditional is dangerous. The next thing you know, “they” will be coming around to take your guns. That can’t be allowed to happen, no matter how many people are killed or injured, how many innocent lives ruined, in the meantime.

Sorting through values is hard work, and the conclusions can be inconvenient and costly.  Easier to deal with absolutes. That way, you can sleep righteously and soundly, without worrying about the victims of your carelessness.

Let’s say you eat a really big meal. A thousand dishes, each dish containing a thousand ingredients. That’s a million ingredients.

After eating the meal, you get sick. More sick than just from being very overstuffed. The doctor says that you have food poisoning. The question for you and the doctor: which ingredient or ingredients poisoned you?

That’s one way of looking at this social/cultural/political moment. There is increasingly a sense that we are poisoned, and that it might be something we ate or are still eating. How are we going to find out for sure? If we do find out, can we stop cooking with and eating that ingredient? Or is it just so tasty, so much a part of so many recipes, that we can’t easily stop or eliminate it?

I came across the above image in my folders. I probably intended it to illustrate a post about Michael Cohen. I don’t recall. It is in no way a reflection of or commentary on lawyers in general. But it is too good to pass up.

John Dean: I would say these people are going to cost a million dollars over the next two years.
President Nixon: We could get that. If you—on the money, if you need the money, I mean, you could get the money fairly easily. From the Russians. (sentence added)
The Nixon Tapes

You can be forgiven if you’re not thinking about Watergate in the context of current presidential corruption. It was a long time ago, and unlike Trump, Richard Nixon, while evil, was actually a very smart and capable man, who did a few good things and some very bad things as president.

I do think about Watergate, and today remembered one of the infamous conspirational conversations recorded on the Nixon Tapes. Here Nixon discusses with his White House Counsel John Dean paying a million dollars in hush money to the Watergate defendants. I wondered what it would have been like if Nixon suggested raising the money from the Russians—then as now our enemies.

Date: Wednesday, March 21, 1973 – 10:12am – 11:55am
Participants: Richard Nixon, John Dean

John Dean: Where are the soft spots on this? Well, first of all, there’s the problem of the continued blackmail—

President Nixon: Right.

Dean: —which will not only go on now, it’ll go on when these people are in prison, and it will compound the obstruction-of-justice situation. It’ll cost money. It’s dangerous. Nobody, nothing—people around here are not pros at this sort of thing. This is the sort of thing Mafia people can do: washing money, getting clean money, and things like that. We just don’t know about those things, because we’re not used to, you know, we’re not criminals. We’re not used to dealing in that business. It’s a—

President Nixon: That’s right.

Dean: It’s a tough thing to know how to do.

President Nixon: Maybe we can’t even do that.

Dean: That’s right. It’s a real problem as to whether we could even do it. Plus, there’s a real problem in raising money. [Attorney General John] Mitchell has been working on raising some money, feeling he’s got, you know, he’s got—he’s one of the ones with the most to lose. But there’s no denying the fact that the White House and [John] Ehrlichman, [Bob] Haldeman, and Dean are involved in some of the early money decisions.

President Nixon: How much money do you need?

Dean: I would say these people are going to cost a million dollars over the next two years.

Short pause.

President Nixon: We could get that.

Dean: Mm-hmm.

President Nixon: If you—on the money, if you need the money, I mean, you could get the money fairly easily.

Dean: Well, I think that we’re—

President Nixon: What I meant is, you could get a million dollars. And you could get it in cash. I know where it could be gotten.

Dean: Mm-hmm.

President Nixon: I mean, it’s not easy, but it could be done. From the Russians. (sentence added)

“Defense Stocks Rally As U.S. Exit From Iran Deal Adds To Mideast Tension”

There are so many messages in today’s headline from Investor’s Business Daily. None of them good.

1. No matter how enlightened and high-minded—or unenlightened and low-minded—the proponents of war are, there are always going to be those who profit from it. The promise of profiting from war is one way to convince influential people and enterprises to support a war footing. That is not cynicism; it is history.

2. The list of Mideast wars, past and present, is too long to list here. Also long is the list of thoughtful people who think the regional situation right now is more tense than it has been in a very long time, and think that the Trump/Bolton position, popular mostly among the extreme and the extremely nationalistic and uninformed, only adds fuel to the flames.

3. Jared Kushner is officially in charge of peace in the Mideast. So we can all rest easy. Unfortunately, among other poor decisions, he invested in money-losing buildings instead of profitable defense stocks, so he is not sleeping all that well. Wherever he is hiding.

In America, and in much of the world, we pay attention to Trump every day, sometimes for hours on end. We do it because he is a powerful public executive who can affect many lives. We also do it because he is there, a major natural disaster or train wreck, fascinating even if it doesn’t affect us. This is exactly what Trump wants, the only thing he wants. If that attention used to be voluntary, he believes it is now mandatory because he is the most powerful person in America and the world.

Forbes just released its ranking of The World’s Most Powerful People:

This year’s list highlights the consolidation of power in the hands of an elite few. Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, seizes the top spot for the first time ever after China’s congress amended its constitution in March, broadening his influence and eliminating term limits. He enjoys a cult of personality not seen since Chairman Mao.

Xi’s elevation to the world’s most powerful person unseats Russian President Vladimir Putin (#2), who held the top spot for an unprecedented four consecutive years. Putin has ruled Russia since May of 2000, and this year he was re-elected to a fourth term with nearly 77 percent of the vote. That’s the largest margin of victory for any candidate for the office since the fall of the Soviet Union.

One year into his term, President Donald Trump falls to the No. 3 spot. Trump has seen limited success pushing his agenda through a Congress controlled by his own party, is under investigation by multiple law enforcement agencies, and can’t shake off scandals arising from his personal and business life –but he’s still Commander in Chief of the world’s greatest economic and military power….

To compile the ranking of The World’s Most Powerful People, we considered hundreds of candidates from various walks of life all around the globe, and measured their power along four dimensions. First, we asked whether the candidate has power over lots of people. Pope Francis, ranked #6, is the spiritual leader of more than a billion Catholics. Doug McMillon (#23), is the CEO of the world’s largest private employer, Wal-Mart Stores, with more than 2.3 million workers around the globe.

Next we assessed the financial resources controlled by each person. Are they relatively large compared to their peers? For heads of state we used GDP, while for CEOs, we looked at measures like their company’s assets and revenues. When candidates have a high personal net worth, like the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos (#5), we also took that into consideration. In certain instances we considered other valuable resources at the candidate’s disposal, like access to oil reserves.

Then we determined if the candidate is powerful in multiple spheres. There are only 75 slots on our list –one for approximately every 100 million people on the planet– so being powerful in just one area is often not enough. Our picks project their influence in myriad ways: Elon Musk (#25) has power in the auto business through Tesla Motors, in the aerospace industry through SpaceX, because he’s a billionaire, and because he’s a highly respected tech visionary.

Lastly, we made sure that the candidates actively used their power. North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un (#36) has near absolute control over the lives of the 25 million people who live in his country, and is known to punish dissent with death.

To calculate the final rankings, a panel of Forbes editors ranked all of our candidates in each of these four dimensions of power, and those individual rankings were averaged into a composite score. This year’s list comes at a time of rapid and profound change, and represents our best guess about who will matter in the year to come.

If you feel the need to pay constant or even obsessive attention to a powerful person, let it be someone—anyone—except Trump. Just about anybody on the list below may be smarter, more interesting, more accomplished, and in many cases more important than Trump.

It is National Prayer Day. It is not worth repeating the hollow and hypocritical nonsense that Trump said today on the occasion.

A theological thought did cross my mind.

If God answers prayers, as many Trump supporters (and many non-supporters) believe, we can assume that a number of those supporters prayed for Trump’s election and for his continuing leadership of America. Those who do faithfully pray for outcomes know that sometimes those prayers appear to be answered and sometimes not. Almost all of those people will admit that how this works, whose prayers are answered and which prayers are answered, is a mystery.

What if Trump’s election and his continuing leadership of America are answers to somebody’s prayers?

Just a thought on this National Prayer Day. As many people, believers and non-believers, pray for this sad madness to end.

It is a cliché to talk about the gaps and divides separating Americans today across many dimensions. There’s money, of course. Education. Knowledge. Political ideology. Race. Religion. Value placed on truth, honesty, compassion, integrity, competence, equality, fairness, lawfulness, civility, decency. But there they all are, arrayed like a bunch of Grand Canyons, breathtaking in ways very different than the awesome inspiration of the actual Grand Canyon.

One great truth of our traditions is that it is a daily struggle to transcend whatever state of personal meanness, baseness and selfishness we are stuck in. Those traditions also tell us that we are capable of prevailing in that struggle precisely because we are, for the most part, naturally better than meanness, baseness and selfishness—if we can discover that. Those traditions also tell us that those gaps and divides—those Grand Canyons—can be bridged because those canyons don’t exist. Not that the differences aren’t there or that everyone is the same or situated the same. But that the differences that matter aren’t there and in ways that matter, everyone is the same and situated the same. Or haven’t you had someone be born in your family or die in your family? Or haven’t you been born and aren’t you going to die yourself?