The Price We Pay...

There will be a lot written and said about the shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk for years to come. This particular gun crime has all the elements of drama and conflicting narratives that will keep all sides of our media and the political world happily obsessed for a very long time.

A number of friends, knowing my personal political history have reached out asking for my thoughts on the shooting. I will confess those thoughts are complicated. But ok, since you asked.

Let’s get the few things clear up front…

Firstly, I am, as everyone should be, horrified by the shooting death of Charlie Kirk. Just as everyone should be equally horrified by the 330,587 firearm deaths in the United States so far this year. Including the 302 deaths in 309 mass shootings that have occurred in the US since January.

I have written many times that America does not have a “gun problem” it as much as it has a Gun Fetish. As a culture, guns get America’s d*ck hard. In the United States, we glorify guns (and gun violence) in media, entertainment and popular culture to such an extent, it makes the rest of the world look at us and wonder how we haven’t yet managed collectively to kill ourselves off in an orgy of horny crossfire.

Our political discourse is overflowing with such metaphors. A politician is a “straight shooter” , One party will have a particular issue “in the crosshairs”. A political scandal will have a “smoking gun”.

People we disagree with are “targeted”. And in perhaps the most Freudian slip of all, one party will use the “nuclear option” against the opposition.

Secondly, Charlie Kirk was shot and killed because of his political, sociocultural and racial beliefs. He is as much a victim of political assassination as Malcom X or Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. How I, or anyone else may feel about Kirk’s beliefs is irrelevant to this forensic fact.

This was a crime of political violence to silence / punish someone because of their views and is equally as unacceptable as any other such crime in American history.

Thirdly, we should be shocked but not surprised by this. To be clear, nothing Charlie Kirk has ever said or done warranted being murdered.

Just as James H. Barrett., John Bayard Britton, MD., David Gunn, MD., Shannon Lowney, Jennifer Markovsky, Leanne Nichols, Robert Sanderson., Barnett Slepian, MD or George Tiller, MD did not deserve to die for providing legal and safe reproductive medical care to women.

Yet Kirk had publicly called for the arrest , and capital murder prosecution of any health care professional who provides such care.

Likewise Former Minnesota Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, did nothing to cause their murder. Gunned down in their home last June, in a politically motivated killing,

Yet in the wake of the Kirks death, it is hard to ignore his rationalization of gun deaths in America as an acceptable price to pay for his preferred ideology. Including his interpretation of the 2nd Amendment’s right to bear arms as unquestionable, entirely un-regulatable and utterly sacrosanct. Kirk in his words two years ago:

“I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.”

The fact this this statement was one of more less provocative and controversial ones made by Kirk over the course of his career is unavoidable context when looking what at happened in Utah.

Charlie Kirk spent his professional life rhetorically attacking and often encouraging violence against those he disagreed with. I could fill page after page with quotes and examples of this but I have neither the time nor inclination. If you are curious you can find some of what I’m talking about here: https://www.theguardian.com/.../charlie-kirk-quotes-beliefs

It can be said, that Charlie Kirk died the way he wanted the rest of us to live. Where violence is an acceptable price to pay, if it serves to further your ideology over those you disagree with.

Back in College I was the editorial editor of one of the two student newspapers on campus. Our particular publication had a decidedly conservative slant. In 1990 the newspaper sponsored an event in the large concourse of the student union building to mark the 200th Anniversary of the Bill of Rights.

Speakers included student organization leaders, staff from the paper including myself, and Mark Belling a local Wisconsin conservative talk radio host known for his right-wing views and who, like Kirk had a long history of provocative and incendiary statements.

The event was protested by a collection of more left-learning student groups and individuals, and quickly devolved into violence with protesters throwing hard objects like ice, small rocks, and coins at the stage.

During my prepared remarks, (on the importance of the First Amendment protecting all points of view) , my eyeglasses were knocked off my face and broken and my face sustained a minor cut by the objects being thrown. It got to the point that Belling and the other speakers had to exit the area for their own safety.

The great irony being had my physical attackers actually heard my remarks they would have largely agreed with everything I was saying. But the climate of political division that had developed in the context of the first gulf war, played right into the idea that even listening to someone you disagree with was unacceptable, and instead they must be silenced.

In the weeks that followed. I and other people at the event received multiple death threats. At the time I treated it cavalierly. Even joking about it as something of a “badge of honor”, that my words and ideas would generate such an outsized response.

I confess, I would not feel that way today.

So yes, political violence does have a very real chilling effect. On all parts of our national social and political spectrum. In his inaugural address in 1989, President George HW Bush lamented that America seemed to be in a place where; “not each other’s ideas are challenged, but each other’s motives.”

The legacy and lesson of the shooting of Charlie Kirk may well be that America has become what President Bush feared. A place where ideological difference is the ultimate justification. You can demonize any and all opposing views and those who hold them as the “enemy” and in doing so, make them less worthy of the rights to the pursuit of happiness, liberty or even life.

The absence of Charlie Kirk’s voice from our national discourse is, in my opinion not a loss for America. But how that voice came to be removed absolutely is. It has made our nation weaker, more dangerous and far less free.

Remembering a September Morning

  (The following is an update of an entry from Sept. 11th, 2011)

This weekend the media, and the blogosphere will  undoubtedly be full of all sorts of remembrances and commentary around the 24th  anniversary of the terrorist attack on the United States on September 11, 2001.

To be honest I really don't like to dwell on the topic. Not out of any sense of personal pain, but more out of respect, for those people I know who were far closer to the events of that day than I was. My experience that day was a somewhat surreal one.

I had gotten up very early and caught a flight from Chicago Midway to Houston. I was heading there for work. It was about 20 minutes into the flight, the seat belt sign had just turned off, and people where shifting about, getting comfortable. I had just pulled out my laptop to work on the presentation I was going to be giving later that day. Suddenly the seat belt sign came back on, and the crew announced that everyone was to return to their seats and prepare for landing, the flight would be returning to Chicago.

The Pilot then came on the speaker system to say that there was nothing wrong with the plane, and we were returning to Chicago because the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) had ordered the flight to return to "clear air traffic". He said that was all the information they had, and he apologized for the inconvenience.

Everyone on the plane thought the same thing. (Not terrorism.) Chicago Midway had upgraded to a new Air Traffic Control System earlier in the Summer and a few weeks prior, there had been a series of glitches that had delayed several flights.  Everyone groaned, made comments about "Government Efficiency" assuming it was yet another problem with Midway's system that was going to mess up  our day.

This  assumption that was bolstered when the captain came back on the loudspeaker  and announced  that we were not returning to Midway but rather we were diverted to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

The woman sitting next to me was happy about this thinking at least it might be easier to get on the next flight out to Houston. I nodded, and said "I hope so", thinking of how I might salvage the rest of my schedule that day and make my afternoon meetings on time.

It took us about 30 minutes of circling over O'Hare before we could land. Sitting in a window seat I watched as the line of planes waiting to land stretched to the far horizon and oddly enough, no planes were taking off. I commented on this to the woman next to me, and she said "wow Midway's systems must be really screwed up!" I laughed and said that what we get for Ronald Reagan having fired all the good Air Traffic Controllers. She laughed and said she had forgotten about that.

We landed and had to wait an additional 20 minutes to get a gate. but finally pulled up to a jetway , and we all lumbered off the plane into the gate area I was getting annoyed because people were not clearing the area in front of the door but were all standing around the televisions that were tuned to the CNN Airport Network. I was about to say a loud "excuse me!" when I happened to look up at the TV and saw CNN  replay footage from ABC of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center.

CNN then cut to live shot of a column of smoke and ash where the World Trade Center Towers were supposed to be, but weren't. I called my office and my boss told me not to come in, The area in downtown Chicago around the Sears Tower was being evacuated. I called my parents and let them know I was not in Houston, got on the CTA Blue Line and went home.   The rest of that day I did what most Americans did, watched the news, and when the images became overwhelming, I put on my roller blades and went blading along the Lake Michigan shoreline.

It was a brilliant sunny day. One of those late Summer, early Fall days that you get in Chicago that make you appreciate what a beautiful city it is. As I stopped at Oak Street Beach and admired the downtown Chicago skyline, I didn't think that somehow the "world had changed". But rather I found myself thinking how the United States had  sadly, finally  joined the rest of the world.

Before that that morning, Terrorism was something that happened in other places, Israel, Lebanon London, Belfast , places far away. Even the first World Trade Center bombing for many people, didn't seem like international terrorism. After all, the people responsible were caught when they tried to get the deposit back on the rental van they had used. (How sinister could people that dumb be?)    That is what changed I think, it was the moment America lost the illusion that somehow our two oceans would keep us safe from global terrorism.

For friends of mine who lived in New York on that day,  I understand  that  today  is a much different  experience for them.   A  friend of mine is  a New York City Police Officer  who  lost an arm in the attack that day.   Another friend of mine worked  for an investment bank housed in the  North Tower,  she had a doctors appointment so she didn't go into work  that morning.   For her, today  is a reminder of  the  friends and co-workers  she lost  that day.

For the numerous friends of mine who have served in the Middle East  with the American and British Armed Forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan, they deal with the effects September 11, 2001 on a far different  and more directly personal level than most people ever will.

So I, along with  people all over the world  will remember the events of that day, pray for those who were lost, and show solidarity and support for friends and family for whom this anniversary is far more personal than political.

God Bless America, God bless us all.

Transitions...

In her essay  “Wear Sunscreen,  essayist Mary Schmich wrote that everyone should ;  "Live in New York City once but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once but leave before it makes you soft."    I never really understood  the full meaning of that until now.  Partly because  I had always incorrectly attributed the quote to  Armistead  Maupin, but mostly because I had never lived in New York.

Now having lived in both places,  I understand what she was talking about.  `

I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area  for 16 years. Eight years in downtown San Francisco, and then after seven years in  Southeast London,  We moved back and lived another 8 years  in the East Bay in Downtown Oakland.     Then a little over a year and half ago, we  moved to New York City, living in Midtown Manhattan, just a stone’s throw from the United Nations.

I have always described Northern California as “an easy first date” .  San Francisco throws its doors open and happily takes whoever wants to come in. It is one of the few major US metro areas where you can still  live easily without  owning  a car.   Yes,  the Bay Area is expensive,  but  logistically  it is a very easy place to live.   So much so that  after a while you start to forget that the rest of the U.S.  isn’t  like that.  Places where Winter isn’t when temperatures dip into the low 60’s  and in summer  people need this thing called ‘air conditioning’?      As a result, living in  Northern California quickly becomes  comfortable

Or, as  Schmich puts it,  it can make you ‘soft.’

New York City is  the opposite.  While like SF,  people can  live here without the need to own a car.  Riding transit  in this city is part  reality show (Urban Survivor) and part National Geographic special.  

Consequently, New Yorkers with the means to, spend large amounts of money on car services to take them pretty much everywhere.  The streets are full of massive fleets of  black SUV’s with tinted windows driven by people  in black suits  with white shirts and  thin black ties.   The fact that this results in more time spent in traffic than if you had just got out and walked,  is pretty much irrelevant. Also, the hallmark of NYC Traffic is drivers who  use their horns  like drivers in other places use headlights.

New York is an argument.   Every day you will find yourself in a  confrontation with some aspect of living in this city.   Apartment hunting here  makes The Hunger Games look like little league. People will rush on to the subway to get seats like they are half price IPads on Black Friday.    

Restaurants  are  about  the “experience”  far more than the food.   A dear  friend of ours works at one of the most expensive restaurants in this city.   It is a place where people seem to go there more to publicly demonstrate their ability to afford it,  than to actually enjoy it.

New York will fight you every day.  The line from the song is completely true, if you can make it here,  you really can make it anywhere. It’s largely why people in this city are the  aggressive,  often rude,  always competitive, amazingly resilient and successful  people that they are.   

The energy of this city is palpable,  intense,  exciting,  relentless and  frankly exhausting.  Which is why most New Yorkers you see on the street have the intense look of someone who is  about to come down off of a Red Bull high.  

Or as Schmich puts it,  New York can make you ‘hard.’

Don’t get me wrong,  New York deserves all  the hype.  It is  an amazing city, that truly never sleeps.  Its self-image as the center of … everything is well earned.   But it is a place where the driving cultural force appears to be  FOMO.   (Fear of Missing Out)  I have seen people jump in a queue outside of a store on 5^th Avenue with no idea what it was for.  But people were lining up so it must be something,  and you don’t dare miss out.

Times Square is awash with “content creators / influencers”  all trying to film the next great  viral  tick-tock trend.  Where in the 70’s and 80’s  you  might have been  asked you if you were  “looking for good time”.  Now you’ll get handed a QR code and be asked to  “like and subscribe”.    

As a result, you know the moment you have transitioned from being a visitor to New York to someone who lives here is when you will happily go ten blocks out of your way just to avoid Times Square.

There is a great moment  from Stephen Sondheim’s “Company”  (which may well be,  the greatest musical where one of the central characters is  New York City - with all due respect to Bernstein).  During the song “Another Hundred People”, where one of the characters tells the lead she is moving away saying: "there's a time to come to New York, and a time to leave" 

Now our apartment is once again a sea of boxes and strapping tape with piles of belongings to sort through into Pack- Ship or Toss piles.  As we pack for  yet another move, this time, back to my hometown,  Madison, WI.    

The original reason for the move to New York, was twofold;  First, to be closer to my parents  whose health was declining.  Flight time from SFO  to MSN under the best of circumstances was 6 hours plus, with the ever delightful connections in either Chicago or Denver. Second, was  to take a new  job in the financial / professional services sector,  the industry where I began my career nearly three decades ago.   

Then a year and half in,  two things happened.   The first was the sheer stupidity of the Trump administration.  Which  has made life and doing business very difficult for international companies who rely on global workforce mobility.   (Even for my employer which to put it bluntly,  has very close ties with Trump.)   So  having my role based in the U.S,  really didn’t  make sense.   So  we parted ways with a friendly handshake and  a very large check, for which I am quite grateful.

The second thing was my dad’s health took a  serious  and  sustained  downward turn.  So, we made the obvious choice to move to Wisconsin.  A decision that was made even easier when I was offered a  very interesting and challenging new job with the Wisconsin State Government .   

Friends  and colleagues have been full of  praise for our decision citing what a “good son” I am.   I have had to smile at that.   I think  if you were to poll my parents  for adjectives  to describe their experience raising me,  “good Son”  would make the list,  but probably not on the top half of it.

This past week  my dad passed away.   An event that has altered the context  for the move but not the core reasons for it.  Now the focus  shifts to my Mom,  and surprisingly,  revisiting my own roots.    

I was joking with my Mom that  we are going from living across from the UN, to living across from a  Kwik Trip.   A move that some would consider a definite step up. 

I guess we will soon find out.  As the Wisconsin state motto says….

“Forward”.

Remembering History's first Video Group Chat - 43 Years ago

 They say the worst thing you can have in live television is “dead air”. Suddenly in front of a room full of government and media dignitaries, with broadcasting history literally hanging in the balance, that is exactly what we were facing. Dead air.

The date was Thursday, October 15th, 1981. Two days earlier, I had boarded an Amtrak train in Columbus, Wisconsin, along with Mike Daugherty, John Garrett, Tom Gehrmann, Chris Kerwin, Anne O'Brien, Becky Weirough, Glenn Zweig, Steve Funk, and Mike Kennedy, Now in the ballroom of the Capital Hill Holiday Inn in Washington D.C. a live satellite demonstration, linking our group of American kids, and a group of young people in Brisbane Australia had just gone on the air.

We were there along with other young people who shared the unique experience of being media users, not just media consumers. We were from the “Kids 4” television project in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. Kids4 had been on the air since 1978, and was an educational partnership between the local public access cable channel and the American Council for Better Broadcasting (ACBB, later renamed as the National Telemedia Council )

Joining us there in Washington, was a group from the KIDS ALIVE! Project in Bloomington, Indiana. Together, we were hosting a live cultural exchange via satellite with a group of young people from down under in Brisbane Australia, who hosted the popular children’s program WOMBAT on Australia's Channel 7.

The kids from the Australian television show went first, showing an amazing video montage of their studio, the gold coast of Australia and the stories they produced there at Channel 7 in Brisbane. Then it was our turn. Or so we thought...   

Kerri Brinson from KIDS ALIVE!, looked in the camera and cheerfully announced; “Well, here’s our video montage!”  And … nothing.

A technician from COX Cable Television, hurried into the room and whispered in the ear of a nearby adult that the Video tape player in the satellite truck, was not working, and therefore none of the prepared footage we had brought with us to Washington could be shown. So we proceeded to do what we always did when doing live television. We improvised. 

The kids from Indiana looked at us like we were nuts. They were not used to working live. One of the great things about the Kids 4 program is we started out doing all of our shows live. It was only after two years we switched to recording them first, then airing them.

Still, with a ballroom full of media dignitaries watching you , plus trying to fill time  with stuff off the top your head, AND cope with at least a 5 second time delay between you and the people you were trying to interview, it was bit tense, even by our standards. But the end result turned out to be something amazing and unexpected.

That one technical glitch turned what would have been a largely scripted exchange into an actual conversation.

Instead of following a script,  we talked.  Asking each other about school, about hobbies and what was it about working with television that interested them, as well as sharing our own experiences as kids learning to use media and not be used by it.

Of course at the time, it felt like a disaster.

Looking back on that day, now, more than four decades ago, I marvel at how much the world has changed. At the time, what we were doing in Washington DC that day was not all that remarkable from a technical standpoint. Live satellite broadcasts were hardly unusual in 1981. Yet from a cultural and educational standpoint, the Kids-to-Kids interconnect was nothing short of revolutionary.

As much as I say that live satellite television was commonplace in 1981, that isn’t to say the mechanics of it were simple. The path of the satellite interconnect - from Washington, D.C. to , Brisbane, Australia was a complex series of relays starting with a signal carried by cable to trucks parked just outside in the courtyard of the hotel. From there, the signal was  beamed by microwave across town to PBS Headquarters.

PBS then sent  the signal to KQED In San Francisco via a  satellite, 22,300 miles above the Earth. Which THEN transmitted it up to another satellite which relayed it across the Pacific Ocean,  and  down to the an earth station near Sydney, Australia.

Finally from there the signal travelled via land lines to the studios of Channel 7, Brisbane, where the Australian children received it and responded. Their messages back to the U.S. travelled in the reverse direction using landlines and satellites back to Washington, to the on-site satellite dish located in the courtyard of the Capitol Holiday Inn, which fed the signal into the ballroom room where it was seen on  large screens by all of us there.

Whew! Did you follow all that? Don’t worry, there won’t be a quiz. But here is what you need to know, everything that I just described, in all its complicated glory, the average teenager can now do with the phone they carry in their pocket. No trucks needed, no delay and now we don’t even think twice about it.

 .
The Interconnect didn’t radically change the media landscape, or advance broadcast technology. What it did do, was in the space of a few short hours make the world a remarkably smaller place. It showed that live satellite broadcasting could be used for more than breaking news and sporting events

More than that, it laid the foundation for the type of personal inter connectivity that today, we take completely for granted. I know this, because I do it nearly every day. At least three times a week I will face-time, or WhatsApp video call or Facebook messenger video call with friends and family scattered all over the globe.  From London, to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to San Francisco, and  Madison, Wisconsin,  and dozens of points in between.    What is commonplace today,  was nothing short of history making on that day in 1981

The interconnect was the first global Zoom meeting.

The greatest take away from that day for those of us fortunate enough to have been part of it, was the power of broadcast technology to bridge distances and connect people in new and exciting ways. It was, at least for me, a  life changing experience. A live demonstration of the power of broadcast technology to connect people and be a platform for sharing experiences and ideas, in (nearly) real time.

Media Literacy is more crucial now than ever before. Teaching young people how to harness the power of media, and connectivity as tools for education and empowerment is more important today, than it has ever been.

Teaching young people to be media users, not just media consumers has always been at heart of the mission of Kids 4 and The ACBB / National Telemedia Council . That mission, which took a gigantic step forward in 1981 continues today. Now as the International Council for Media Literacy You can find out more about the IC4ML and it's mission and legacy on their website,:  https://www.ic4ml.org.

 In a world where if kids in Sun Prairie, WI  want to talk to kids in Brisbane, Australia , all they need is a smart phone and a decent WIFI signal, the lessons of the Interconnect are even more important today than they were four decades ago.

Still more than 40 years on, it remains an experience that played a tremendous role in shaping my path in life I am so very grateful to have been a part of it.

Remembering a September Morning...

  (The following is an update of an entry from Sept. 11th, 2011)

This week  the media, and the blogosphere will  undoubtedly be full of all sorts of remembrances and commentary around the 23rd  anniversary of the terrorist attack on the United States on September 11, 2001.

To be honest I really don't like to dwell on the topic. Not out of any sense of personal pain, but more out of respect, for those people I know who were far closer to the events of that day than I was. My experience that day was a somewhat surreal one.

I had gotten up very early and caught a flight from Chicago Midway to Houston. I was heading there for work. It was about 20 minutes into the flight, the seat belt sign had just turned off, and people where shifting about, getting comfortable. I had just pulled out my laptop to work on the presentation I was going to be giving later that day. Suddenly the seat belt sign came back on, and the crew announced that everyone was to return to their seats and prepare for landing, the flight would be returning to Chicago.

The Pilot then came on the speaker system to say that there was nothing wrong with the plane, and we were returning to Chicago because the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) had ordered the flight to return to "clear air traffic". He said that was all the information they had, and he apologized for the inconvenience.

Everyone on the plane thought the same thing. (Not terrorism.) Chicago Midway had upgraded to a new Air Traffic Control System earlier in the Summer and a few weeks prior, there had been a series of glitches that had delayed several flights.  Everyone groaned, made comments about "Government Efficiency" assuming it was yet another problem with Midway's system that was going to mess up  our day.

This  assumption that was bolstered when the captain came back on the loudspeaker  and announced  that we were not returning to Midway but rather we were diverted to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

The woman sitting next to me was happy about this thinking at least it might be easier to get on the next flight out to Houston. I nodded, and said "I hope so", thinking of how I might salvage the rest of my schedule that day and make my afternoon meetings on time.

It took us about 30 minutes of circling over O'Hare before we could land. Sitting in a window seat I watched as the line of planes waiting to land stretched to the far horizon and oddly enough, no planes were taking off. I commented on this to the woman next to me, and she said "wow Midway's systems must be really screwed up!" I laughed and said that what we get for Ronald Reagan having fired all the good Air Traffic Controllers. She laughed and said she had forgotten about that.

We landed and had to wait an additional 20 minutes to get a gate. but finally pulled up to a jetway , and we all lumbered off the plane into the gate area I was getting annoyed because people were not clearing the area in front of the door but were all standing around the televisions that were tuned to the CNN Airport Network. I was about to say a loud "excuse me!" when I happened to look up at the TV and saw CNN  replay footage from ABC of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center.

CNN then cut to live shot of a column of smoke and ash where the World Trade Center Towers were supposed to be, but weren't. I called my office and my boss told me not to come in, The area in downtown Chicago around the Sears Tower was being evacuated. I called my parents and let them know I was not in Houston, got on the CTA Blue Line and went home.   The rest of that day I did what most Americans did, watched the news, and when the images became overwhelming, I put on my roller blades and went blading along the Lake Michigan shoreline.

It was a brilliant sunny day. One of those late Summer, early Fall days that you get in Chicago that make you appreciate what a beautiful city it is. As I stopped at Oak Street Beach and admired the downtown Chicago skyline, I didn't think that somehow the "world had changed". But rather I found myself thinking how the United States had  sadly, finally  joined the rest of the world.

Before that that morning, Terrorism was something that happened in other places, Israel, Lebanon London, Belfast , places far away. Even the first World Trade Center bombing for many people, didn't seem like international terrorism. After all, the people responsible were caught when they tried to get the deposit back on the rental van they had used. (How sinister could people that dumb be?)    That is what changed I think, it was the moment America lost the illusion that somehow our two oceans would keep us safe from global terrorism.

For the  many  friends of mine who lived in New York on that day,  I understand  that  today  is a much different  experience for them.   A  friend of mine is  a New York City Police Officer  who  lost an arm in the attack that day.   Another friend of mine worked  for an investment bank housed in the  North Tower,  she had a doctors appointment so she didn't go into work  that morning.   For her, today  is a reminder of  the  friends and co-workers  she lost on that day.

For the numerous friends of mine who have served in the Middle East  with the American and British Armed Forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan, they deal with the effects September 11, 2001 on a far different  and more directly personal level than most people ever will.

So I, along with  people all over the world  will remember the events of that day, pray for those who were lost, and show solidarity and support for friends and family for whom this anniversary is far more personal than political.

God Bless America, God bless us all.

Dear DNC Protesters...

 

To all the “activists”, “organizers” and “influencers” descending on Chicago to protest the Biden Administration’s positions on the war in Gaza,  allow me to clue you in on something…

You are idiots…  All of you.  Complete Morons.

And I say that with love.  Your desire for peace in the Middle East is not the problem.   I’m with you there.     

But your completely delusional idea that disrupting the Democratic National Convention is going to move that part of the world closer to peace, OR ‘force a change in US policy’ again,  just shows how incredibly dumb you are.

Before I go any farther down this road, I want to take a minute to address the “Queers for Palestine” crowd.    Or as you should more accurately be described as; “Chickens for KFC”. 

 A 2021 report on LGBT acceptance by UCLA’s Williams Institute examined  175 countries/territories. Israel ranked 44^th Palestine came in at 130 , behind Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Georgetown University likewise placed Palestine 160th out of 170 countries on their women’s peace and security index. 

Amnesty International’s 2020 report on human rights highlights the fact that, in Gaza, male same-sex relationships are punishable by up to 10 years’ imprisonment and points out complete lack of legal protections against anti-LGBT discrimination and harassment.

This lack of civil rights has led hundreds of gay and bisexual Palestinians to flee to Israel to escape persecution. One such refugee, Ahmad Abu Marhia, a 25-year-old gay Palestinian man, was living under asylum in Israel when, in 2022, he was kidnapped and beheaded in the West Bank city of Hebron. His murderers uploaded footage of the killing to social media.

When confronted with the glaring contradiction of your  support for Hamas and condemnation of Israel (the ONLY nation in the middle east where it is safe to LGBTQ)  you proudly stick your  fingers in your  ears and yell; “LA! LA! LA! NOT LISTENING! PINKWASHING!  LA! LA! LA!”  

Again…  Idiots.   Complete Morons.

Sorry to splash the cold water of reality on your other favorite response to facts you don’t like, but to point all these things out is NOT to be in favor of the suffering currently being endured by the people of Gaza or to be in support of   the policies and actions of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But the idea that yelling your way through downtown Chicago this week, waving your “Ka-Bomb-ala Harris “signs   is going to do anything to help the people of Palestine is so obtuse as to boggle the mind. Let’s examine the choice you seem to be desperate to ignore.    The choice between Kamala Harris and the Democrats and  Donald Trump and the Republicans.

Back in May 2018 then President Trump took the unilateral action of moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.  An action which at the time was done for two reasons.  The first, to give Donald Trump something to Tweet about that didn’t 't involve Russia., and in Israel, shift the news cycle away from the growing corruption scandals that were surrounding Benjamin Netanyahu.

It is worth noting at the embassy opening ceremony back in 2018, sitting right in the front row was the late Sheldon Adelson.   

A man who had recently written a 30-million-dollar check to the GOP and was a major donor to  the "Temple Institute" An organization that actively advocates the destruction of Islamic holy sites to build the "third temple" on Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and whose widow Trump just praised at a campaign fundraiser as being better than soldiers who received the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Add into this mix Conservative Christian Evangelical Pastors John Hagee and Robert Jeffress. Both spoke at the embassy opening and are counting on Trump to deliver a really big war between Israel and the Arab world.  Because they think that will trigger the "end of days” so they can get  beamed up to White Jesus' magical gated community in the sky.

These lunatics not only oppose a two-state solution, but also oppose ANY idea of Palestinian self-determination.     And under a second Trump Presidency, US support for continued Israeli settlements in the occupied territories and military action in The West Bank and Gaza would go on completely unchecked.

But sure, Kamala Harris is who you are protesting…  Idiots.

The Democrats lack of clear aggressive opposition to Netanyahu and his policies is rooted in the political reality of America’s divided government.   You want change?  ELECT PROGRESSIVES TO CONGRESS especially in the United States Senate.  All your DNC street tantrums will do is give Fox News and the Trump Campaign a great set of visuals and talking points to use with undecided voters in the swing states.   

The other set of morons in this equation..

Your delusional denial of this doesn’t change the reality of it.   You ARE essentially campaigning for Donald Trump and the GOP and against the cause of the Palestinians you claim to be “solidarity with’. Your mindless determination to make the perfect the enemy of the good will however, accomplish one thing.   It will definitely feed the GOP swing state narrative that “It’s the radical leftists at the 1968 DNC all over again!”    

See how that works out for everyone.  Oh wait… We HAVE seen how that works out.  Back in 2016 when Hillary wasn’t “progressive enough” for many of you.    You held firm to your “our way or no way” convictions which I’m sure felt really good at the time. Then over half a million Americans died because of the incompetence of the choice you saddled the rest of us with.   And Benjamin Netanyahu got a green light to expand settlements in the occupied territories and ignore the peace process.  Which obviously helped fan support for Hamas in Gaza

But hey, well done you… 

So go ahead, run amok through the streets of Chicago making demands that a second Trump Administration will just laugh at.    As long as you look good on Tik Tok doing it, right?

Idiots.

The limitations of hindsight....

 79 Years ago this week, the United States and Japan both earned singular places in world history. The U.S. as the first and only nation to ever use atomic weapons in war, and Japan as the first and only country ever to be attacked with such weapons .

It has become rather fashionable in some quarters to debate the decision by President Truman to drop the Atomic Bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In recent years it has even become commonplace to hear the bombings referred to as “American War Crimes”. The arguments range from saying Japan was already defeated and the bomb was dropped partly as some grotesque military science experiment, and partly as a geo-political shot across the bow of Soviet Russia. A warning to Stalin to mind his manners and place in the world.

How much of that is true, and how much of that is ideological historical revisionism, we will never know. The only man who can truly answer those questions is Harry Truman, and from the day the first bomb fell to the day he died Truman maintained that his decision was the correct one.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/X-aXwokBdL8

Truman's statement after the Hiroshima bombing

To say that by August 1945, Japan was defeated is both accurate and overly simplistic. The question was not was the Japanese military defeated. but rather would Japan stop fighting in spite of the reality of that defeat The overwhelming evidence at the time, including statements by the Japanese high command clearly indicated the answer to that question was No. Japan would fight on, and a full-scale invasion of the Japanese home islands would be inevitable.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/HKD-0mJ94B4

BBC Documentary "Hiroshima"

I often tell the story of friends of mine in Europe and in Asia and the different questions they have asked me about this moment in American history. German friends of mine will ask with genuine curiosity why did the US drop the atom bomb? While friends in Korea, Thailand and Philippines will ask with equally genuine curiosity why The United States only dropped two atomic bombs?

The argument that use of the Atomic Bomb was immoral and inhumane is something of a straw-man. ALL acts of war, even those that can be militarily justified are immoral and inhumane. The firebombing of Japan by American B-29’s had already killed more Japanese civilians than would die in both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks combined. Japan had already killed more Chinese civilians than Jews killed by the Nazis in Hitler’s death camps.

The atomic bomb was not dropped to win the war, but to end it. Ending it without having to invade Japan,. The best estimates held that the invasion of Japan would cost 268,000 casualties. Personnel at the Navy Department estimated that the total losses to America would be between 1.7 and 4 million with 400,000 to 800,000 deaths. The same department estimated that there would be up to 10 million Japanese casualties. As opposed to the roughly 200,000 deaths from the atomic attacks on both cities

I find this perennial argument flawed on so many levels. NOBODY thinks dropping the Atomic bombs on Japan was a GOOD thing to do. The issue is was it the correct choice at the time.? To employ hindsight driven hypothetical scenarios is remarkable easy in 2024 and blithely dismisses what the otherwise inevitable invasion of Japan would have cost in lives on both sides.

The desire by some to cloak this debate in terms of were the bombings “justified” or moral is an overly simplistic attempt in hindsight to avoid the more relevant and complex hypothetical questions of what were the real alternatives at the time? War is not a moral act. The causes that compel nations to war have underpinnings of morality. Be it to end slavery or, free an oppressed people, or even self-defense. But war itself is killing on a mass scale. There is no getting around that.

To try to view Hiroshima and Nagasaki solely in that one dimension, and to frame it as a critique of the 40 years of an atomic arms race that followed, may be ideologically satisfying to some, but it is both intellectually lazy and factually dishonest.