At one point, Venice, Italy, was famous around the world for producing some of the finest textiles. Velvet—woven from thousands of fine silk threads—was especially desirable. In 1500, the clatter of 6,000 enormous looms echoed through the streets of the ancient canal-lined city. Today there is just one company left producing velvet in the traditional way; the Luigi Bevilacqua Company. The Bevilacqua family can trace its weaving lineage back to the 1400s, and remains entirely family owned and operated.
Monthly Archives: November 2016
Freedom of Speech, Politics, Trump
Of Course Most #NeverTrumpers Will Capitulate
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Thousands who (admirably) devoted themselves to the #NeverTrump movement have already (sadly) begun to second-guess their opposition now that Trump’s heading to federal power. Ben Terris nicely describes the impulse – the natural reaction to yield to power – in Welcome to NeverTrump Grief, Stage 3: GOP skeptics bargain with Trump — and themselves.
One can be libertarian and yet admire – easily and truly – those conservatives who opposed Trump.
And yet, and yet – within a week or so, most of the formerly committed #NeverTrumpers have become #WantToKeepMyNewspaperColumnAndRadioGigPleaseForgetWhatISaid. One should not be surprised that capitulation took a mere week: politics has a social aspect, many of its practitioners are socially needy, and these same practitioners will do whatever they must to stay close to power, or at least close to a nice table, a nice party, and a nice private club.
Here’s Erick Erickson, formerly a #NeverTrump leader, seven days after the election:
Erick Erickson, a conservative pundit who served as an outspoken critic of Trump from the right, is pushing back against what he sees as a lot of “crying wolf” about the president-elect. So he says he’s giving Trump the benefit of the doubt. Even about controversial decisions such as hiring Bannon.
“If Obama got [Valerie] Jarrett, Trump can have Bannon,” he wrote for the Resurgent. “And when the alt-right goes marching through Washington or people start trying to round up Jews because of it, then we can raise the issue and provide shelter to those in need. But there is no guarantee that will happen.”
It’s hard to overstate how craven this is: Erickson doesn’t have a guarantee (to his satisfaction) that the alt-right won’t round up Jews, and if they were to do so, then Erickson promises he will be sure to “raise the issue.” Perhaps he’ll send them a cautionary memo.
If the difference between peace and a pogrom depends on the lack of a guarantee of a pogrom, it’s an uncertain peace. A man walking down the street would like more than the lack of a guarantee that he’ll get attacked (“you’re good, buddy, ’cause there’s no formal assurance that you’ll be shot”).
Be not surprised: most people will initially rationalize – and thereafter accept and even celebrate – myriad transgressions and impositions. Yesterday’s abnormality will become tomorrow’s normality.
Weeks will become months, and months years, before we will see the collapse of this way. The coming period will mean loss for many, with lives disagreeably altered or wholly ruined. For those so injured, these months and years will seem an eternity.
What, though, of those who are by nature unyielding? Weeks, months, and years will effect no alternation in their opposition, in either intensity or duration.
We will carry on, waiting patiently until others, some returning and many new, in numbers exceeding our hopes, join us in a common cause.
Cato, Environment, Federal Government, Trump
The Next Secretary of the Interior?
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
While there is much talk about high-profile cabinet posts like State, Defense, and Justice, there are lower-profile posts that will still attract both interested parties and occasional controversies. The Department of the Interior is among them. Prospects for that cabinet secretary include oil baron Forrest Lucas (a big contributor to Mike Pence’s gubernatorial campaigns), venture capitalist Robert Grady, Donald Trump, Jr., and Sarah Palin.
Randall O’Toole spots much better picks, with a better strategy, than the leading contenders:
As Secretary, either Palin or Lucas would be likely to try to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration and extraction. Bush tried this in 2001 and the environmentalists successfully prevented it. Instead of going after the most controversial piece of ground in the nation, Bush should have–and Trump should–start with opening less controversial areas to show that oil development is compatible with wildlife and other resources.
In the same way, instead of controversial figures like Palin or Lucas, Trump could ask Gary Johnson to be Secretary of the Interior. As a former western governor, Johnson is more familiar with public lands than Lucas. As a dedicated free marketeer, Johnson won’t be committed to one resource over all others; instead, he will try to find ways to maximize the value of all of them together.
Johnson’s Libertarian candidacy shouldn’t make him unacceptable, but if it does, how about current Arizona Governor Doug Ducey? As former CEO of Cold Stone Creamery, Ducey isn’t identified with one natural resource or another. As a fiscally conservative Republican, Ducey should fit right in with Trump’s agenda.
See, A Non-Polarizing Secretary of the Interior @ Cato.
I would be stunned if Johnson got an offer, let alone took the job, but then being stunned isn’t so rare as it once was. O’Toole’s right, though, to expect better than the conventional options (or certainly the unconventional option of Trump’s namesake.)
Bigotry, Politics, Press
‘Critics Say So’
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Is Stephen Bannon, newly-appointed chief strategist to Donald Trump, a racist. A headline to a story on that subject comes with a limitation: critics say so. (See, Is Trump’s new chief strategist a racist? Critics say so.)
There’s the weakness of a legacy press: big money, high self-regard, but a small appetite for declaring definitely the character of a person’s views on a well-considered topic.
Is it so hard for a powerful paper to give readers an up-front answer? Yes, it is, as a combination of past journalistic traditions, present need for readership, and an eternal desire to ingratiate with the next administration.
Reporter Weigel mostly exonerates Bannon of the charge of racism, relying in part on Morning Joe Scarborough’s exhaustive study of ‘like five different people’ that Scarborough happened to choose:
More importantly, Bannon helped shape a Trump message that won the condemnation of the Anti-Defamation League — and helped him in swing states. Trump’s closing ad, a two-minute edit of a speech he had given attacking the “global financial powers,” struck the ADL as hitting “anti-Semitic themes.” In the wider media, it was seen as stirring and populist.
“I played the clip for like five different people and I said, ‘Is that anti-Semitic?’” said MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough last week. “No. There are dog whistles, but .?.?. play that ad to 100 Americans in middle America, 99 of them will go, ‘That’s cool.’?”
(Weigel’s ‘in the wider media’ claim is both vague and false. The Trump ad to which he refers drew considerable media criticism. For a detailed assessment of the ad’s anti-Semitism, see Josh Marshall, Trump Rolls Out Anti-Semitic Closing Ad, with a scene-by-scene analysis.)
For an answer to the question of Bannon’s racism, see David Corn’s excellent Here’s Why It’s Fair—and Necessary—to Call Trump’s Chief Strategist a White Nationalist Champion: Stephen Bannon said he was.
Elections, Law
Getting Protest Hashtags (#NotMyPresident) Half Right
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Columnist Paula Dvorak, writing at the Washington Post, contends that saying “saying #notmypresident is the same as saying #notmyconstitution or #notmycountry or #notmyAmerica.” See, Stop protesting democracy. Saying #notmypresident is the same as saying #notmyconstitution.
Dvorak is only right about the first two hashtag phrases – she overreaches on the others. It’s true that #notmypresident is like saying #notmyconstitution, as the first depends on the constitutional order of the second. That’s the reason that I have not, and will not, use #notmypresident: Trump was elected lawfully the 45th president of the United States on November 8, 2016. Defending the constitutional order is a worthy defense (and a needful defense as Trump is likely to threaten constitutional norms many times while in office). That defense begins with a fair acknowledgment of who has been elected.
Dvorak’s wrong, however, to think that #notmycountry or #notmyAmerica are somehow impermissible: those terms describe what someone thinks of the society more broadly, apart from a legal or political understanding.
She’s also wrong to think protests against Trump are undemocratic. In fact, they’re democratic both broadly and narrowly. Broadly, one should be able to protest lawfully as one wishes. Narrowly, Trump wasn’t elected by a majority of voters, or even a plurality of them. A plurality went to Clinton, and a majority went to all the alternatives to Trump. If one thinks that democracy – rule of the demos – is what should matter, then one would be protesting for democracy by protesting against Trump.
One may accurately say that Trump’s election was constitutionally permissible at the expense of both the majority’s wishes and those of a plurality. Lawful, to be sure, but by design with a limitation on majoritarian wishes.
This might all be a mere exercise in terms, were the consequences not so large: hundreds of millions, across a vast continent. Define legitimate protest as narrowly as Dvorak does (so that it’s somehow out of bounds to say #notmycountry or #notmyAmerica) and one denies those millions something more meaningful than a single, lawful election’s result.
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 11.15.16
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Good morning.
Here in Whitewater we’ll have cloudy skies giving way to sunshine and a high of fifty-six. Sunrise is 6:48 AM and sunset 4:30 PM, for 9h 42m 21s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 98.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Common Council meets at for a public hearing on the 2017 municipal budget, 6:30 PM, and there will be a Fire Department business meeting at 7 PM.
Worth reading in full —
Kurt Eichenwald lists Two Myths Democrats Swallowed That Cost Them The Election: “1. The Myth of the All-Powerful Democratic National Committee. Easily the most ridiculous argument this year was that the DNC was some sort of monolith that orchestrated the nomination of Hillary Clinton against the will of “the people.” This was immensely popular with the Bernie-or-Busters, those who declared themselves unwilling to vote for Clinton under any circumstances because the Democratic primary had been rigged (and how many of these people laughed when Trump started moaning about election rigging?). The notion that the fix was in was stupid, as were the people who believed it….2. The Myth That Sanders Would Have Won Against Trump….”
Fiona Hill describes how Putin and the Kremlin are experts at reading the popular mood. And they were watching America: “Putin does not have deep knowledge of the intricacies of U.S. party politics. He cares little for the mechanics of the American electoral system and its complexities, and is disdainful of the messy nature of democracy in general. But one thing he does know well is how to gauge the national mood, play with emotions, and manipulate people. He also knows how to take the measure of individuals and exploit their flaws and weaknesses.”
Nelson Schwartz reports on Trump supporters’ hopes that he’ll save their jobs: “He cited Carrier again and again on the campaign trail, threatening to phone executives at the company and its parent, United Technologies, and to hit them with 35 percent tariffs on any furnaces and air-conditioners they imported from Mexico. To the cheers of his supporters, he predicted at rallies that Carrier would call him up as president and say, “Sir, we’ve decided to stay in the United States.” Now his supporters expect action. “If he doesn’t pass that tariff, I will vote the other way next time,” warned Nicole Hargrove, who has worked at Carrier for a decade and a half and is not certain what she will do if and when her job goes to Mexico.”
Trump moves to make government business his family’s business: “The Trump team has asked the White House to explore the possibility of getting his children the top secret security clearances. Logistically, the children would need to be designated by the current White House as national security advisers to their father to receive top secret clearances. However, once Mr. Trump becomes president, he would be able to put in the request himself. His children would need to fill out the security questionnaire (SF-86) and go through the requisite background checks. While nepotism rules prevent the president-elect from hiring his kids to work in the White House, they do not need to be government officials to receive top secret security clearances.”
Nature
A Supermoon Time-Lapse
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Foreign Affairs, Russia, Sanctions
Our New Partner
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
The Washington Post reports today on the the first fruits of Trump’s foreign policy direction:
The Kremlin says that Russian President Vladimir Putin and President-elect Donald Trump have agreed in a phone call to work to improve U.S.-Russian relations.
The Kremlin says that Putin expressed readiness to establish a “partner-like” dialogue with Trump’s administration….
The Kremlin says that Putin and Trump agreed that U.S.-Russian ties are “unsatisfactory” and spoke for joint efforts to normalize them and engage in a “constructive cooperation on a broad range of issues.”
Hopeful wall-builders must be disappointed that Trump’s call wasn’t to threaten Mexican officials (really, to make a mere show of it while America pays for whatever barrier he devises against free markets in capital, goods, and labor).
No, it was a telephone call to Putin, bomber of innocents in Syria, tormentor of Ukranians, and friend of anti-Anerican hackers, that Trump so obligingly took.
One can guess – without guessing – that “partner-like” discussions involve terms to lift sanctions against Russia for her violence in Ukraine.
It says all one need hear that even the United Nations Human Rights Council, with several dictatorial members, found Russian conduct so egregious that they rejected her continued membership.
No matter, from Putin’s perspective: why should Russia worry about the U.N. when she was Trump by her side?
History, Law, Liberty, Politics, Presidential race 2016, Trump
Kevin Drum on Trump and the End of Reconstruction
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Blogging at Mother Jones, Kevin Drum – like many of us, of whatever politics – seems uncertain about the consequences of a Trump Administration. (In fairness, much has happened in a short time, and it’s hard to make sense of it all.)
Still, Drum’s thinking has shifted significantly over the last few days, in ways he no doubt sees. His 11.9 day-after post, Things We Can Count on In the Next Two Years belies his 11.10 post, The United States Is Not About to Spiral Into Fascism and Tryanny.
Two days after the election, Drum writes to reassure, contending that Trump will be no different, no worse, than
say, Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio would be. Beyond that, though, he’s less conservative on the policy front. The reason Trump is uniquely bad is mostly symbolic: he’s willfully ignorant; he’s vindictive; he’s a demagogue willing to appeal loudly and proudly to racial animus; and he has the attention span of a small child. He’d be an embarrassment to any country, let alone the most powerful country in the world.
Isn’t that bad enough? There’s no need to pretend we’re about to spiral into a fascist nightmare or a financial collapse. We have not embraced tyranny. The United States is a very big battleship, even for Donald Trump.
One day earlier (that is, one day after the election), Drum sees a different prospect for America under Trump:
Since I have the Reconstruction era on my mind right now, it’s hard to avoid the obvious comparison. Reconstruction lasted about eight years, and then was dismantled almost completely. Barack Obama’s presidency lasted eight years and will now be dismantled almost completely. I will withhold my opinion for now on the obvious reason for this similarity.
There lies Drum’s – and our – problem. If a Trump era is anything like the end of Reconstruction was for millions of black Americans at that time, then there is every reason to be extremely concerned. Generations – indeed, during roughly a century of history – went by before millions received the rights the Constitution granted them.
There’s no need to belabor a point that Drum knows, and about which he is sympathetic. The problem for this country is that a politics like the end of Reconstruction was for blacks would be devastating for millions our fellow citizens. When one reaches the need for an analogy between our time and the decades after 1877, one has already arrived at a moment of crisis for huge numbers.
So, is Drum’s initial concern (by way analogy) on 11.9 justified, or is a Trump Administration likely to be little different from how a Cruz or Rubio Administration might have been (as Drum wrote on 11.10)?
Few during these last months thought that Trump, Cruz, and Rubio were much alike; there’s no reason to think they were. A populist politics of Trump’s kind will push as far as it can, making Drum’s initial concerns more probable than his subsequent reassurances.
Music
Monday Music: Armatrading, Kind Words and a Real Good Heart
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 11.14.16
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Good morning,
In Whitewater, we’ll have a partly cloudy Monday with a high of fifty-nine. Sunrise is 6:37 AM and sunset 4:31 PM, for 9h 44m 29s of daytime. The moon is full today.
On this day in 1851, Moby-Dick is first published. On this day in 1861, historian Frederick Jackson Turner is born in Portage, Wisconsin. On this day in 1891, Frederick Banting, a Nobel Laureate for his pioneering treatment of diabetes with insulin, is born.
Worth reading in full —
Andrew Sullivan sees Trump triumphant: “This is now Trump’s America. He controls everything from here on forward. He has won this campaign in such a decisive fashion that he owes no one anything. He has destroyed the GOP and remade it in his image. He has humiliated the elites and the elite media. He has embarrassed every pollster and naysayer. He has avenged Obama. And in the coming weeks, Trump will not likely be content to bask in vindication. He will seek unforgiving revenge on those who dared to oppose him. The party apparatus will be remade in his image. The House and Senate will fail to resist anything he proposes — and those who speak up will be primaried into oblivion. The Supreme Court may well be shifted to the far right for more than a generation to come — with this massive victory, he can pick a new Supreme Court justice who will make Antonin Scalia seem like a milquetoast. He will have a docile, fawning Congress for at least four years. We will not have an administration so much as a court….”
David Remnick sees normalization leading to restrictions on civil liberties: “In the coming days, commentators will attempt to normalize this event. They will try to soothe their readers and viewers with thoughts about the “innate wisdom” and “essential decency” of the American people. They will downplay the virulence of the nationalism displayed, the cruel decision to elevate a man who rides in a gold-plated airliner but who has staked his claim with the populist rhetoric of blood and soil. George Orwell, the most fearless of commentators, was right to point out that public opinion is no more innately wise than humans are innately kind. People can behave foolishly, recklessly, self-destructively in the aggregate just as they can individually. Sometimes all they require is a leader of cunning, a demagogue who reads the waves of resentment and rides them to a popular victory. “The point is that the relative freedom which we enjoy depends of public opinion,” Orwell wrote in his essay “Freedom of the Park.” “The law is no protection. Governments make laws, but whether they are carried out, and how the police behave, depends on the general temper in the country. If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.”….”
Kevin Drum urges his fellow progressives to calm down: “But he’s [Trump’s] not a cult leader beyond his own small base of superfans, and he’s not a king. Congress has its own ideas about what it wants to do, and they will do it. Trump will learn that repealing executive orders is harder than he thinks, and it’s unlikely he has the attention span to really keep at it. Hell, repealing Obamacare will be harder than Trump thinks. He’s not going to declare martial law or round up Muslims and throw them in internment camps. He will likely face a recession, but not a financial collapse. When it happens, the Fed will take the lead, and Republicans will throw money at it. That’s hypocritical, but also perfectly OK as a policy response….”
Masha Gessen offers rules for survival in an autocratic politics: “I have lived in autocracies most of my life, and have spent much of my career writing about Vladimir Putin’s Russia. I have learned a few rules for surviving in an autocracy and salvaging your sanity and self-respect. It might be worth considering them now:
Rule #1: Believe the autocrat. He means what he says. Whenever you find yourself thinking, or hear others claiming, that he is exaggerating, that is our innate tendency to reach for a rationalization. This will happen often: humans seem to have evolved to practice denial when confronted publicly with the unacceptable. Back in the 1930s, The New York Times assured its readers that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was all posture. More recently, the same newspaper made a telling choice between two statements made by Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov following a police crackdown on protesters in Moscow: “The police acted mildly—I would have liked them to act more harshly” rather than those protesters’ “liver should have been spread all over the pavement.” Perhaps the journalists could not believe their ears. But they should—both in the Russian case, and in the American one….”
Animation, Cartoons & Comics
Sunday Animation: Krazy Kat – Bugologist
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
| Story, George Herriman. | Duration: 3:21 at 22 fps. | While in the woods studying bugs, Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse encounter a sleeping bee and an angry elephant. | Summary from M/B/RS shelflist card. | Based on George Herriman’s comic strip Krazy Kat.
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 11.13.16
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of fifty-six. Sunrise is 6:46 AM and sunset 4:32 PM, for 9h 46m 39s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 98.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
Sometimes squirrels simply go mad & bad, as the residents of the Sterling Court retirement home in Deltona, Fl. recently learned:
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 11.12.16
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Good morning.
Saturday in this small city will be sunny with a high of fifty-one. Sunrise is 6:44 AM and sunset 4:33 PM, for 9h 48m 52s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 93.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
There’s a new international trailer for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The film is scheduled for release on 12.16.2016. Lots of clues inside:
On this day in 1927, Joseph Stalin becomes unchecked ruler of the Soviet Union following Trotsky’s expulsion from the Communist Party. In 1942, Allied (principally American) naval forces engage the Japanese Imperial Navy at the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, resulting in an Allied strategic victory on 11.15.1942.