Nihil Nixed

I must admit that many of my most recent blog posts have had a strong spiritual tone.  This may have been a bit of a turn-off to those who are uncomfortable with the spiritual as I define it, or to those who want me to write essays that are focused solely on the observable, quantifiable physical and economic processes of the ongoing decline of the Global North.  While I don't apologize at all for the spiritual element, I promise that today's post will not be just another sermon.  I also promise that in addition to the spiritual, today's post will contain the empirical.  But before you can have your dessert, you must first eat your dinner!

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Let's begin by studying a word: nihilism. The first page of a Google search of this word reveals the following definition at the top of the page: "the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless." According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, nihilism is "originally a philosophy of moral and epistemological skepticism that arose in 19th-century Russia during the early years of the reign of Tsar Alexander II," although the Encyclopedia acknowledges that the concept pre-dates 19th-century Russia. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (woo-hoo!), a product of the University of Tennessee, Martin, states that nihilism is "...the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated." The IEP also states correctly that nihilism as a cultural phenomenon was examined by Friedrich Nietzsche, who concluded correctly that nihilism is the inevitable product of the rejection of the belief in a personal God who gives meaning to the universe, as corroborated by another Internet powerhouse created by a high-powered university, namely Stanford. Nietzsche foresaw the destructive effects which nihilism would have on European and Euro-centric societies which had hitherto relied on Christian ethics and morals as a guide to right action and a restraint against wrong action. His solution therefore was to propose the emergence of an Übermensch (or perhaps a collection of them) who would form a new aristocracy imposing its will on the rest of humanity, thus becoming the creators of the system of values by which the rest of humanity would be obliged to live - often without realizing this obligation. In other words, in the place of God - the Übermensch! These individuals would be able to thus reign over the rest of us by virtue of their more finely developed "will to power", and by means of the power thus conferred by that more developed will.

Now, time for full disclosure: the above paragraph is the result on my part of a rather brief study of nihilism and Nietzsche.  A full study would require weeks, months, or even years of time and the possession of a brain possessed with enough reserves of working memory to untangle really long and knotty philosophical arguments.  I know I don't have the time (mowed the lawn yesterday, need to plant more soybeans in my backyard and finish cleaning the house), and I'm not sure I have even a tenth of the mental firepower needed for such an effort.  But let me break down the above paragraph into a set of propositions.  Nihilism (and Nietzsche) involves the following:

1. The belief that there is no intrinsic master of the universe who imposes meaning and values on the universe;
2. The need to save human society from the anomie that results from Statement 1 above by the emergence of an Übermensch or aristocracy of such individuals who by their own finely developed will to power gain the power to impose that will on the rest of us.
3. The rejection of the notion of impartial treatment of all men (and hence of the equality of all men).  Note that this equality is specifically taught by the New Testament - a source which is rejected by both nihilism and Nietzsche.

The implications of these three attitudes are that if you happen to be one of the fortunate few who can act as an Übermensch,  you can set the rules of whatever part of human society you control according to your own tastes.  And more than likely, the chief goal of your tastes will be to maximize your power as much as possible, even if it means a diminishing of the power of others.  ("Let's divide up the world fairly between us.  One for me, and one for me.  Two for me, and two for me...Heads I win, tails I win...")  You can get away with it, because there is no intrinsic master of the universe who can impose his standards on you - standards which may well contradict yours.

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At first blush, the tradition of thinking embodied in traditional American religious fundamentalism and white American evangelicalism would seem to be the farthest thing from nihilism and from the concept of the Übermensch posited by Nietzsche as the antidote to that nihilism. After all, the rallying cry of American Protestants has historically been Sola Scriptura. And if you're going to cry, "Sola Scriptura!" ("By Scripture alone!") you have to accept Bible passages such as the Book of Ezekiel, which I am currently reading. Ezekiel's prophecy is the polar opposite of nihilism, as seen in quotes like this:

Then He said to me, "The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is very, very great, and the land is filled with blood, and the city is full of perversion, for they say, 'the LORD has forsaken the land, and the LORD does not see!' But as for me, My eye will have no pity nor shall I spare, but I shall bring their conduct upon their heads." - Ezekiel 9:9-10

In other words, by crying "Sola Scriptura!" white American evangelicals have stated their belief in a moral universe, a universe ruled by an impartial moral standard imposed externally on it by a Creator who Himself rules over the universe He has created, and who is angered by and ready to punish the violation of His moral standard.  Therefore, this moral standard is not the creation of any mortal man, but rather of the God who created the universe.  Indeed, according to C.S. Lewis, the mere fact that humans appeal to a moral standard at all - even when the standard to which they appeal is of their own making - shows that humans acknowledge the existence of independent moral standards.  This argument is beautifully set forth in Mere Christianity.   (By the way, white American evangelicalism seems to love C.S. Lewis - at least from what they say about him.)

Armed with this recognition of a moral standard that is independent of man and which originated outside of man, white American evangelicalism has branded itself a warrior in behalf of this moral standard to impose this standard on everyone, whether they want it or not.  Thus from the late 1960's until 2016, prominent American evangelical voices such as Charles Colson, Franklin Graham, Francis Schaeffer, James Dobson, Tony Perkins, et al, have spoken tirelessly against the disappearance of Christian ethics and culture from the broader American culture, as well as warning against the rise of popularity of other religions and the loosening of American sexual mores.  I must say that I think they have been partly right to speak out against things which the Bible speaks against.  But when it comes to the fulcrum - the center of gravity - of the New Testament, they have been unaccountably silent.  For Christ Himself (whom they claim to believe and follow) said, "Therefore, however you want people to treat you, you too, do so for them, for this is the Law and the Prophets."  He also said that next to the greatest commandment, namely to love the Lord with all one's being, the second greatest commandment was to love one's neighbor as oneself.

Plenty of other people have explained quite well how it suited American Protestant and evangelical churches to ignore the Scriptural duty each human being has toward his or her fellow human beings, since after all, white America made itself great by trashing, robbing, enslaving and oppressing everyone else on earth.  Under such an arrangement, it would have been highly politically inconvenient for the mass of evangelicals to condemn what Ezekiel would call the gaining of material wealth by violence.  (See Ezekiel 22.)  Indeed, if I might editorialize for just a bit, the Scripture frequently uses sexual imagery to describe the relationship between the God of the Bible and those who call themselves His people.  The true Church is therefore called the Bride of Christ, while those who call themselves God's people and yet are unfaithful to Him are frequently called harlots or unfaithful wives.  In this context, the white American evangelical church has for a long time made itself the spread-legged harlot - the serving wench - of secular, earthly economic and political power, and not the Bride of Christ.

They did so first by teaching that a Christian man's duty to love his fellow man applied only when the two men who needed to love each other were white.  Then they taught that since the rest of us were defective, they could exterminate or enslave us at will, as if to re-enact Israel's conquest of the land of Canaan.  The only problem with this is that they posited that we their intended targets deserved our mistreatment because we were more wicked than they.  (That accusation has since been abundantly proven false!)  And lastly, they redefined evil as being confined simply to certain sexual sins and piety as being confined merely to private observance of religious devotion - thus giving them license to systematically break almost every commandment of God that addresses how people are supposed to treat each other.

I know what effect such teaching (and the treatment I received from white churches who taught it) had on me at first - there was the self-doubt, the questioning, the wondering whether it was actually true that God had created me to be the trash can, the vomit bucket, the toilet bowl, the punching bag of a select subset of humanity, and whether there really was nothing I could (or should) do about it.  One of the things that saved me from that self-doubt and questioning has been that over the years, I have watched the ways in which the leading voices of white American evangelicalism have failed to uphold their own standard.  For they can't even keep their own rules; therefore, they have lost all rights to claim that they are better than me in any way.  So they say that sexual morality is the only kind of morality that matters?  Maybe - but what about the many flag-waving Republicans who voted for Bush, who lost all their retirement savings in the 2008 financial meltdown?  What about the patriotic American soldiers who were killed in the 2003 Iraq invasion which the United States performed to remove weapons of mass destruction that never existed?  These are by no means the only true believers who have suffered from the failure of man to do right by man.  And regarding sexual morality - why is it that the Republicans and evangelicals who were so strident in impeaching Bill Clinton have rallied around Donald Trump?  You who are ready to punish my imperfection, you who accuse me of being a violent thug ready to rape women because I am an African-American male, why have you not stoned Dennis Hastert to death for his sin?  Or Mark Sanford?  Or Josh Duggar?

But I am not here today to editorialize.  I have a larger point to make - first, that the white American evangelical church (and by extension, the entire Republican party) have come to me to be the perfect embodiment of nihilism.  Nihilism in the sense that while they say they believe in an impartial moral standard that originated outside of themselves, they act as if there is no such standard and that the only standard to which they need to submit is the standard which they themselves create and have the power to enforce.  They are the Übermensch aristocracy, whose philosophy is captured in this quote attributed to an aide of former President George W. Bush:

The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' [...] 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.

So,... what's the point of all that I have written so far?  As I said a few sentences ago, I am not here to editorialize.  Nor am I here to try to appeal to the better angels of the people now in power in this country.  Frankly, I am tired of that kind of editorializing (although today I found a particularly fine example of it here).  To me it's a waste of time to tell people who do very bad things that they are in danger of thus making themselves very bad people once you see that they want to be bad because they find badness to be ego-syntonic.  My question is much cruder.  Namely, it is this: how long can a society get away with murder before there are consequences?  For the universe is not nihilist!  After all, the Bible does not just appeal to our better angels; it also promises consequences to those people who do not have better angels.  And the consequences are not just that such people will become icky.  The Bible promises that God will break things in the lives of those who continue in evil.  "The soul that sins shall die." - Ezekiel 18:4.  "The wages of sin is death..." - Romans 6: 23.  "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap." - Galatians 6:7.  In other words, I am looking for the propagation of the outworkings of damnation in a society that ought to be damned.  Moreover, I am looking not only as a Christian, but as an empiricist, a person who has received a technical professional education and earned a technical professional degree and who is familiar with the scientific method.  And this weekend, I think I've found some evidences for the propagation I've been looking for.

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Consider again the white American evangelical and Protestant establishment as the spread-legged harlot - the serving wench - of secular, earthly economic and political power, and not the Bride of Christ.  Consider that church as a key pillar of the power base of Donald J. Trump, and consider that this is so because of the leaders who have risen to prominence in the evangelical ecosphere.  Now consider what is happening to that church in the age of COVID-19.  I leave you with the following citations:

• Survey: 65% of Churches See Giving Decline During Pandemic
• Why Are Your Online Attendance Numbers Suddenly Dropping? 5 Reasons
• When Your Church Reopens, What Will Be Left and Who Will Still Come?  Some Thoughts
• Sunday Slump - The Virus Is Accelerating Dechurching in America

I therefore hypothesize the emergence of a much smaller evangelical presence in America over the next several months, and the diminishment of American evangelicalism as a potent and controllable force in American politics.  (Disclaimer: I am not a prophet, and have not been officially certified by any state or government board as having any sort of gift of prophecy.  Take what I say with a grain of empiricism - YMMV.)  I also hypothesize the emergence of a cohort of jobless pastors!  This decline of evangelical power is, I think, one of the biggest reasons why Trump is so hot to remove social distancing restrictions on large indoor gatherings.  It is also why the Trump administration has extended COVID-19 financial aid to evangelical churches (in violation, some would say, of the Constitutional separation of church and state).  

Trump's use of government resources to prop up cronies leads me to the consideration of other propagations of the outworkings of damnation.  These considerations overwhelmingly involve the effect on American secular power.  But you'll have to wait until my next post to read them.  It's way past time for me to do other stuff...

I Am Not Going To Church This Sunday

So I hear that Donald Trump has made the following statement:

"The president just demanded places of worship reopen for in-person services and he talked about guidelines being issued for “communities of faith”. 

He wants them open “for this weekend”. Called upon governors to life quarantine restrictions relating to religious gathering places.

“If they do not do it I will override the governors,” he said.

He then turned on his heel and left the White House press briefing room without taking any questions.

Press secretary Kayleigh McEnany then brought up Deborah Birx, response coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, to the podium for an expert briefing."

 - Quotes retrieved from the Guardian, 22 May 2020.

I've got news for him: I'm not going to church this Sunday.  I will not be celebrating Memorial Day in crowded places.  (I will not be celebrating the 4th of July at all.)  I will not be going to indoor, sit-down coffee shops (like the Starbucks near my house which opened its doors today for the first time in several weeks).  I will not go to restaurants.  I will not go to national parks.  I will not attend sporting events.  I will not join in this idiot's pretense that life is normal.  Because it's not.  Due to Donald Trump's malignancy and incompetence, we have the following situation:

• A pandemic has dealt (and continues to deal) a crippling blow to our economy.
• The people who to date have borne the brunt of the deaths resulting from that pandemic are people whom Trump and his white Republican murderers have targeted for destruction.
• There is not yet a viable, proven vaccine available for COVID-19.  (Yes, I know that a certain American biopharma manufacturer is boasting of optimistic results - but their data have not been rigorously peer-reviewed.)
• There is not yet a viable, proven antiviral drug that is effective against COVID-19.  (Yes, I know that the manufacturers of remdesivir have boasted of minor reductions in disease severity and length of hospitalization - but many doctors and scientists have questioned the methodology of the U.S. remdesivir study. (See this and this.)  And yes, I know that Donald swears by hydroxychloroquine, but I suspect that not a drop of it has passed through his lips.  How might the world look if he did really overdose on some fish tank cleaner!)
• There is not yet any kind of widespread testing available for coronavirus infection.  A Washington State-based group that had developed a free, accurate test kit that could be used in people's homes was asked this week by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to halt the use of their tests.  On the other hand, the FDA has granted authorization to a Texas firm to provide in-home test kits - but those who want a kit must jump through a few hoops first.  Why am I not surprised?  Donald Trump has already made it abundantly clear that he is opposed to widespread testing because of the possibility that the test results will indicate that the United States is experiencing a crisis for which the Republican Party has no answer.
• Those states and regions which have ended social distancing restrictions are now seeing a spike in COVID-19 cases.  As a result, there will be further spikes in death rates.  Again, not surprising.  Throw lit matches into a dry meadow in the middle of summer, and you will have fire.

In calling therefore for churches and other places of worship to open this Sunday (and in threatening to force them to open whether they want to or not), Trump shows not only his ignorance of the Constitution, not only also his ignorance of the Bible (Matthew 4:7, "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test"), but most importantly, his ignorance of the realities of trying to reopen a nation and its economy without dealing with the issues that forced it to close in the first place.  Those realities are excellently explained in an article by Jonathan V. Last titled, "We Cannot 'Reopen' America."

On another note, I've noticed that Trump's response to the coronavirus pandemic is not just an isolated case of insanity.  Rather, he is typical of all of the global Far Right leaders who have come to power (many of them with the help of the Russian government) over the last several years.  Thus Boris Johnson's Britain became an outlier among those nations which consider themselves in any way European, in that Britain came to have the largest number of COVID-19 cases of any country in that part of the world.  And Russia, which has long aspired for a return to greatness, now has its wish for greatness fulfilled in a sense, in that it now has the largest number of COVID-19 cases of any nation on earth except for the United States.  (We're still No. 1 - Go, USA!  Or let's not!)  Moreover, both Putin and Trump seem to be reading from the same playbook in that their national health response to the coronavirus has been characterized by scapegoating of foreigners, political posturing, and chaos.  One way in which Putin's government differs from Trump's is that Trump merely bullies and browbeats medical experts who contradict him.  Putin, on the other hand, seems to have lost a few dissenting doctors who mysteriously fell from windows over the last few weeks.  They didn't slip on their tea, did they?

Update: I need to add another country currently being trashed - er, I mean, ruled - by a far-Right leader: Brazil.  Jair Bolsonaro has just earned the dubious distinction of leading his country to overtake Russia in COVID-19 deaths and confirmed cases.  That means that Brazil is the new global No. 2.  This confirms my hypothesis that everything the Far Right touches turns to used toilet paper.

The Duty Of Active Citizenship

Here is another blatantly spiritual post.  But hey, it's Sunday (and I will be in church shortly), so I will indulge myself.

Lately I have been thinking rather much about the wide range of responses among the American public to the Trump presidency.  One response that has been somewhat troubling has come from certain seemingly well-meaning elements of the American church community - both home-grown and immigrant.  That response can be best summarized in the following statement: "We recognize that it is God who removes kings and sets up kings.  Therefore, we must recognize that it is God who has given Trump the presidency.  This means that we must not speak against the president whom God has given us."  Some carry this thinking even further, and say, "Just as God worked through flawed human beings in history to accomplish a greater purpose (as was the case with  Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus), even so God has raised up Trump to accomplish a greater purpose."  (See this also.)  The implication then becomes that the flaws and sins of Trump are no longer a legitimate point of criticism, since he is "the vessel whom God has chosen."  Some among this crowd even go as far as blatant appeals to Calvinist doctrine to teach that, since God is Sovereign, and since nothing happens apart from His sovereignty, we who have been the historical targets of oppression should not complain about the oppression which has been dished out to us, nor protest against the ascendancy of people who in the present day want to dish out extra helpings of the same oppression.

I say that such thinking is both flawed and dangerous, as it presents only a partial picture of the story.  One of the biggest missing pieces of that story is that God has given free will to both men and societies.  Another huge missing piece is the fact that God gives and allows things in response to the freewill choices of His creatures.  So when people fall under the grip of an oppressor, it may be that the appropriate response of the oppressed is not to absolve themselves of responsibility, nor to throw up their hands and say, "God is bringing us through trial as He did with Job, and we must not try to figure out the root causes of our suffering.  Perfecta es Tu voluntad para mi..."  Maybe what we should do instead is to ask ourselves how and where we dropped the ball and allowed this to happen.

So how then should believers look at life under oppressive political regimes? That is a huge question and it requires a huge answer.  And I don't have time to even begin to scratch the surface of that answer today, nor do I believe that I have the wisdom to provide a definitive answer all by myself.  However, I'll present a few of the thoughts that have come to me from thinking about this question over the last three months.

First, I believe that God has created us to fulfill a particular purpose, and that this purpose involves the full development of the humanity of every human being, as I wrote in a previous post.  The fulfillment of that purpose and calling involves the struggle of nonviolent conflict, because of the presence of oppressors and would-be oppressors who seek to make themselves rich by dehumanizing the rest of us.  How should we respond when the oppressors become the rulers of the land?  One clue to the answer to that question can be found in 1 Peter 2:13: "Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution..."  The word translated "institution" is the Greek word κτίσις (ktisis), and it literally means, "creation (my emphasis), creature, institution..."  This is important.  For it means that we are called to submit to every created institution, not only to the institutions created by our oppressors, but to the institutions which the oppressed create in order to fulfill their ontogeny in spite of their oppressors.  For our submission to the institutions of our oppressors should extend only as far as we can obey without violating our duty to our higher calling.  Where the institutions - the creations - of our oppressors seek to violate that calling, we are responsible for creating new creations - new arrangements and parallel institutions - by which we may facilitate the fulfillment of our calling.  This is why anarchy is not a right response to oppression, for according to the Scriptures, "God is not a God of confusion but of peace."  When the oppressed create by themselves the creations - the arrangements and institutions - by which they may fulfill their calling in spite of their oppressors, this is an example of "active citizenship" as defined by Asef Bayat in his book, Life as Politics.

So then, why are "bad kings" given?  Why is it that peoples fall under the rule of oppressors?  For I have stated that the Bible teaches that God gives and allows things in response to the freewill choices of His creatures.  And it is true that God removes kings and sets up kings.  (See Daniel 2:21).  So what choices do oppressed people make that cause them to remain in victimhood to oppressors?  I submit that the answer is that the oppressed far too frequently become and stay oppressed through a failure of active citizenship.  I am thinking particularly of a quote from a book I recently got, Recovering Nonviolent History: Civil Resistance in Liberation Struggles, edited by Dr. Maciej Bartkowski.  On page 18 of the first chapter, Dr. Bartkowski quotes Syrian activist Abd al Rahman al-Kawakibi: "...people 'themselves are the cause of what has been inflicted upon them, and that they should blame neither foreigners nor fate (my emphasis) but rather ignorance (al-jahl), lack of endeavor (faqd al-humam), and apathy (al-taw kul), all of which prevail over society.'"  He also cites Polish philosopher Josef Szujski in his assertion that "...the guilt of falling into the predatory hands of foreign powers lay in the oppressed society and, thus, the solution and liberation need to come from that society transformed through its work, education, and civility. Victims and the seemingly disempowered are thus their own liberators as long as they pursue self-organization, self-attainment, and development of their communities."

This shows us where many societies, including the present United States, have gone wrong.  First, we fell victim to convenience - that is, in the words of Jack Duvall, we allowed ourselves to be rented by people who promised to relieve us of the duties of active citizenship in exchange for our support of the political aspirations of these people.  Their message was, "Let us do the dirty work of creating a healthy society.  After all, we are the experts and you are not.  (As our covfefe-in-chief once said, "I'm a genius!")  All you have to do is lend us your support by sending money to our political campaign and vote for us."  The flip side of that convenience is that we allowed ourselves to become addicted to convenience - that is, to a lifestyle which required no hard work, no thinking, no sacrifice for a larger good - but only the immediate gratification of our cravings and appetites.  In short, we became a society whose members aspired to be Ferris Bueller or a character from Happy Days when we grew up.  How fitting that Ferris Bueller's Day Off became a box office hit during the presidency of Ronald Reagan.  How perceptive also is Dr. Maciej Bartkowski's comment that the Ukraine fell back under the sway of corrupt dictatorship after the Orange Revolution because after that revolution, Ukrainians abandoned active citizenship and went back to watching TV.  

This also shows us where many "nonviolent resisters" in the United States are still going wrong.  They believe that the power of rulers over a society is a fixed, durable monolith, and they direct their efforts to arguing with the current owners of the monolith for control of the monolith, as Gene Sharp explained in his book The Politics of Nonviolent Action: Power and Struggle.  This is why their repertoire of strategy and tactics includes very little more than protest and persuasion (which might be termed a series of variations on the common tactic of loud complaining).  But movements which focus solely on complaining show a lack of confidence in their ability to take their affairs into their own hands.  These would-be resisters would do much better to stop arguing over control of an oppressive and unjust system and to devote themselves the much more effective work of active citizenship (starting with self-rule, self-control, and freeing oneself of degrading addictions), of building the parallel arrangements and institutions of a just society within the shadow of the wreckage of their present corrupt society.  Effective nonviolent resistance, whether in the United States or Russia or anywhere else, must be modeled on the spread of active citizenship and must not therefore rely on the presence of a charismatic leader who rents the support of the society by promising them that he will meet all their needs if only they will give him their support.

But I am sure that there are those who, after reading this, still think that Trump is a mysterious gift from an inscrutable Calvinist god, and not the fault and consequence of a nation guilty of wrong thinking.  Maybe among these people are those who will freeze to death this winter because even though they had money in the bank, they neglected to pay their heating bill.  Maybe their last dying sentence will be, "Perfecta es Tu voluntad para mi..."  But when they stand before the Judgment seat, they may hear, "You doofus!  Why didn't you pay your bills?" 

The Emotive Effects of Saturday Night Wrestling

Looking back, I realize that when I was an adolescent, there were many times when my mom possessed the patience of a saint.  One such time seemed to occur every Saturday night, when me and my next youngest brother would park ourselves in front of the TV in the living room to watch Saturday Night Wrestling.  What inevitably happened was that for 45 minutes or so, we would fill the house with the noise of our screaming and shouting at the TV as we watched the good guys we had been told to root for as they were being beaten half to death by some Scary Big Bad Guys.  My mom never got into the screaming and shouting, nor did she ever watch Saturday Night Wrestling, as far as I know.  But she did sometimes poke fun at the emotive action-adventure shows we liked to watch.  (I particularly remember her stand-up parody of someone being shot by a phaser - but I digress.)

You see, by the time me and my brother discovered Saturday Night Wrestling, my mom had become in many ways a hard-edged realist.  It wasn't until much later that I myself began to reflect on some of the "pro wrestlers" I had seen and began to realize that even though they seemed to get the living daylights kicked out of them every Saturday night, they kept coming back week by week.  None of them died from wrestling, although several of them died from cardiovascular disease, and one of them suffered a fate worse than death - he became a state politician.

I was thinking about Saturday Night Wrestling and its connection to fights which are highly dramatized, even though the combatants don't do any real damage to each other.  For instance, take Trump's order to fire cruise missiles at a Syrian air base last week.  The Tomahawk cruise missile is supposed to have the capability for a high degree of accuracy, and the United States has a number of intelligence assets which could have been used to augment their accuracy - yet last week's missile strike did almost no damage.  (See this also.)  Second, take the fact that Trump informed the Russians of the impending strike before the first missile was launched.  (That means that Russian expressions of "surprise" at the missile strike are in fact disingenuous.)  Third, take the fact that before last weekend, Trump was in definite political danger in the U.S., and Putin was becoming increasingly unpopular in his own country.  Lastly, take the questions which have been raised by a number of commentators on whether or not Syria actually still has any remaining stocks of chemical weapons.

If you consider all these points, you may conclude, as I have begun to conclude, that last weekend's little show was an international version of Saturday Night Wrestling.  (Although I really do believe someone did use chemical weapons to kill innocent Syrians.  It always stinks when innocent bystanders are dragged against their will into someone else's TV show.)  If last weekend's action really was the beginning of a rift between Trump and Putin, I would expect to see long-term, deep, irreversible effects to manifest themselves - in such things as the cash flows between Trump and his Russian business contacts, or long-term adjustments or revisions to American economic policy toward Russia.  Absent that, I might be forced to conclude that last weekend's drama was about as real as the injury done to a pro wrestler who is body-slammed onto the mat, yet gets back up again for more action.

Maybe Trump and Putin should dress up in wrestling tights when they hold news conferences.  It would not hurt their credibility in my eyes, since Trump never had any credibility to begin with, and as far as Putin, one of his lackey mouthpieces once wrote that "a reputation is something you lose only once."  Putin has lost his.  Take this whole fight against terror, for instance.  Russia waged an information war accusing the U.S. of manufacturing ISIS in order to provide a pretext for military intervention in the Mideast.  Yet Russia has now been intervening in the same way in the same region for over a year, and by now should have destroyed ISIS itself - yet we keep hearing of ISIS attacks, in Egypt, and now in Germany.  What if ISIS is a convenient sock puppet for the Russians also, to aid their implementation of a Duginist agenda in Europe - an agenda which involves making Europe an unsafe place for any non-European person or Muslim to live?

Playing Catch With Fire

Last week's strikes by U.S. missiles against a Syrian air base have provoked a lot of commentary from various pundits inside the United States.  Some are saying that the U.S. action represents "the Trump doctrine not to follow doctrine."  Others are saying that the strikes are sending "a clear message" to Russia (and to the world).

I am quite a bit more cynical.  It is well known that Russia played a very large role in getting Donald Trump installed as the President of the United States.  It is also very well known that FBI investigations of the Russian role have uncovered a lot of dirt on Trump and his dealings with the Russians.  This dirt has been gleefully reported by a large number of American journalists who are frankly disgusted by Mr. Trump.  It is also well known that Russia has been caught in a very bad light lately, due to Vladimir Putin's repression of peaceful anti-corruption protests which took place over the last few weeks.  The ties between Putin and Trump are a liability which could have provided an easy opening to removing Trump from office.

Mr. Trump has closed that opening a bit by his actions against Syria.  Indeed, I believe this is the chief and sole reason for his order to attack Syria with cruise missiles.  It seems a devilishly clever bit of political calculus, and it seems to have worked for the present - but it is quite risky.  I am reminded of a quote from The Hunt For Red October: "The hard part about playing chicken is knowing when to flinch."

Make no mistake. In the present contest between the U.S., the Assad regime, and Russia, there are no good guys. None at all. The best way to look at what's going on right may be to compare these events to the Bible story set forth in Judges 9. I am thinking especially of the curse which Jotham pronounced against Abimelech and the men of Shechem. Maybe our present international crisis will end with a бабушка dropping a piece of an upper millstone on the head of a head of state. Кто знаете?

What Happened During the November Recounts - An Interview with Rick Lass of the Green Party USA

This week I am pleased to be able to present an audio recording of an interview I conducted with Rick Lass, who was the ballot access coordinator for the Presidential campaign of Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein, and was an instrumental member of the team which assisted Ms. Stein in attempting to obtain ballot recounts in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin after the U.S. Presidential election this last November.  For the last several weeks I have been curious as to the experiences and obstacles encountered by the Green Party recount team, and I am grateful for the opportunity to have that curiosity answered in some measure.  I hope you who read will also find the interview to be helpful and informative.

To listen to the interview, click here.

In the interview, I ask the following questions:

1. What led the campaign of Jill Stein to push for recounts?  (The original question was, "What led the Green Party to push for recounts?"  Rick corrected me and informed me that it was actually the Jill Stein campaign that pushed for the recounts.)
2. You did recounts in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.  Were there any other states where you considered doing a recount?  If not, why not?
3. Are there states that refuse or that are - "unenthusiastic" - about a robust audit process?
4. What was your experience of the recount process?
5. What efforts did you encounter to hinder or thwart or derail the recounts?  If you did encounter such efforts, please tell us what they were.
6. Can the official results of the recounts be considered valid?  Why or why not?
7. What functional or structural barriers do you now see to free and fair elections and to the democratic process at this time?
8. Do you still believe that the political process in the United States is viable enough for people to pursue the management of their affairs by political means (i.e., by voting, by belonging to political parties, and by participating in the American political process as it now is)?
9. Regarding activism, are you familiar with scholars and practitioners of nonviolent civil resistance, such as Gene Sharp, Jack DuVall, Professor Erica Chenoweth, and others?

The Role of Women In The Nonviolent Struggle

I feel the need to revisit some comments I made in my last post, and some points I have made several times in my posts on nonviolent resistance to the Trump presidency.  It bears repeating that civil resistance campaigns against an oppressive regime have a much higher chance of success than violent campaigns.  One main reason for this is that an oppressive state has a monopoly on the use of violence, and is much better prepared to use violence than any resisters who are not part of the state apparatus.  Waging a violent resistance campaign is fighting the state on its own terms, which means that the state usually wins.

But nonviolent struggle fights the state on a battlefield where it is weak - and oddly enough, the more oppressive the state, the weaker it is on the battlefield of nonviolent resistance.  There are four reasons for this which have been identified by Chenoweth and Stephan in their book, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict.  These reasons are:

• Much lower physical barriers.  Participation in nonviolent resistance does not require people to be elite wanna-be "Crossfitters".  Therefore, it is open to women of all ages, children, elderly men, and young men who are smart enough to avoid violence.
• Much lower informational barriers.  Those in violent struggles must keep most of their activities secret, whereas those in nonviolent struggles can be much more open - thus much more easily attracting others to join in the struggle.
• Much, much lower moral barriers.  A person who commits himself to participate in a violent struggle is basically making a commitment to kill people and break things.  Most people, myself included, think that such activities are immoral, and we are thus not likely to participate.  But the tactics of nonviolent struggle are not immoral; therefore, they don't require people to violate their consciences to participate.
• Much lower commitment barriers.  Once a person has involved himself in a violent campaign, he can never entirely return to his old way of life.  He may need to spend the rest of his days on the run, in hiding, living a life that is physically very difficult.  But those who participate in nonviolent campaigns can do so while leading lives that feel relatively normal.

Those whose struggle is entirely nonviolent are also more likely to separate the leaders of an oppressive regime from the pillars of support which it needs to survive.  Violent campaigns almost never achieve this separation.

In view of the above points, I want to comment on the protest marches which took place on Friday and Saturday.  The protests that took place on Friday were focused on opposing the inauguration of Donald Trump.  That is an admirable goal, and I entirely agree with the protesters.  However, the protesters are guilty of failing to plan and prepare adequately for their activities on Friday.  This allowed people who call themselves "anarchists" to infiltrate the protests and cause violence and property damage.   The actions of these "anarchists" almost certainly helped the Trump presidency by giving it a legitimate excuse for repressing future protests.  Their actions also caused revulsion and disgust even among populations who fear a Trump presidency, such as Christians who belong to immigrant churches.  It is quite possible that these "anarchists" were paid by the supporters of Donald Trump to cause trouble in order to de-legitimize the protests.  Allowing these people to infiltrate a peaceful protest was a bad tactical mistake.

The women's marches that took place yesterday, were, by contrast, entirely nonviolent.  They also attracted hundreds of thousands of participants.  The key to their success was the extensive preparation and teaching of nonviolent discipline which preceded the marches.  (See this and this also.)  To me, this shows that the women who organized and participated in these marches were wiser, more skillful, more strategically savvy and more level-headed than the marchers on Friday.  Certainly they were sharper and more on the ball than a bunch of hot-headed young male "anarchists."  Perhaps we should learn something from them.  And maybe they should be relied on to teach the rest of us the right way to do protest.

I am sure that more protests against Trump are planned.  I would just say two things.  First, any participants who resort to violence during any of the protests should be regarded as agents provocateurs, troublemakers hired by the supporters of Donald Trump in order to give him and the police an excuse for violent repression of protest.  Such people should be avoided like the plague.  Secondly, should it become impossible to conduct a mass protest without fear of infiltration by paid troublemakers, the nonviolent struggle should switch to tactics of dispersion, such as the strike, the boycott, and the stay-away.

One big target for a potential stay-away or boycott is the Super Bowl which will take place in two weeks.  What if, instead of watching - either in person, on TV in your home, or at a sports bar - you spent that time doing something more useful with your life?  Don't feed the beast that bites you.

The Nonviolent Resistance - A Grand Strategic Vision

I read today about the large number of protesters who rallied in many cities in the United States to show their opposition to Donald Trump. I am very glad to hear that the number of those participating in rallies and protests yesterday and today far exceeded the number of Trump fans who attended his inauguration.  But it is critical for those who oppose Trump to be able to formulate and present a vision of the future that stands as a viable alternative to the plans and policy of Mr. Trump.  Here I will propose such a vision.

The first element of such a vision is a realistic view of what is possible in the world that is now emerging.  That world is no longer a world in which one nation, or one segment of that nation, can command all the world's resources and rule all the other peoples of the world with an iron (or velvet) fist.

The second element of such a vision is a willingness on the part of the many to create a society that provides equal and effective access to life-sustaining resources for all its members, regardless of ethnicity, national origin or religion, by means of the following:

• Effective education (teaching its members how to think, how to understand and navigate the world in which they live)
• The best health care that its members can provide by pooling their resources for the common good
• The most equitable livelihood that its members can provide by pooling their resources for the common good
• The best use of housing and land that its members can provide by pooling their resources for the common good
• An equal say for each of its members in determining the shape and course of such a society
• The safety that arises from being insulated as much as possible from supremacist predators.

Such a society will necessarily be an alternative society, with parallel institutions, in that it is created by grassroots, bottom-up efforts which do not receive help from those now in power, and which thrive even when opposed by those in power.  The creation of such a society will manifest itself locally as a result of the efforts of the people who live in various localities.  The creation of such a society will also require hard work and serious study.  It will also take time.  Laziness, a hunger for quick fixes, or wishful thinking will not be helpful at all.  The organs of such a society must be open to everyone who wants to join in the effort to create such a society - even to those Trump supporters from among the poorer classes who become casualties and victims of a Trump presidency.  One thing is certain.  Trump will not create a healthy society for any except the wealthy and powerful.  His victims - even among those who supported him - will be many.

Those who are involved in creating alternatives to a Trump society must maintain nonviolent discipline in their struggle.  I am thinking of Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict by Chenoweth and Stephan.  (I got my copy of that book on Thursday night, and have been reading it ever since.)  In the book, the authors document the negative effect that the presence of violence has on a civil resistance movement, and how violence by armed resistance wings or by government-sponsored agents provocateurs reduces the likelihood that the civil resistance movement will succeed.  It is thus regrettable that "anarchists" were able to infiltrate peaceful protests on the day of Trump's inauguration.  Those who organize protest marches should work as hard as possible to make sure that such people are excluded from future marches or rallies.  It is also necessary for the nonviolent struggle to combine tactics of concentration, such as rallies and protests, with tactics of dispersion, such as strikes, boycotts and stay-aways.  (On Friday I "stayed away" from work.  Instead, I spent the day reading and praying.  That was my form of protest.  And I did not watch the inauguration.)  Movements that rely on only one or a few tactics are easy to defeat.

The Opening Battle?

The opening moves in the battle of the next four years may have occurred on the 6th of this month.  A mass shooting occurred at the Fort Lauderdale airport, and at least five people died.  This time, the authorities did not shoot the alleged perpetrator, so he is actually alive to stand trial.  There are, however, some parts to the official story concerning this man which are rather, ah, convenient for the supporters of Donald Trump - such as the fact that the man - Esteban Santiago - was Hispanic, and that he allegedly heard voices telling him to fight for ISIS.  If one was looking for a handy sensational incident to help a mentally unbalanced President-Elect justify mass deportations or persecution of nonwhite and non-English speaking Americans, one would hope for something like this. (For a bit of context, here, here and here are links to mass shootings within the last few months that, while mentioned in local news, were not deemed worthy of national news coverage.)

Now I will try to refrain from using the phrase "false flag" in the remainder of this post.  But I'd like to propose a call to action.  I think it might be good to set up a legal defense fund for Esteban Santiago, and to push for the following things for him:

• A complete medical examination, including a psychiatric interview and examination for evidence of psychotropic substances which he may have taken or have been given (under duress or not) by others.  In order for the examination to be counted as valid, it would have to be given by a team of doctors chosen by the defense team.
• A defense team who is knowledgeable in both the tactics of the global far right and in the use of tactics developed by the state to force people to do things that they would not ordinarily do.  
• A public trial televised on C-SPAN so that any and all interested parties can verify that due process is served to Mr. Santiago, that we may see for ourselves whether or not he is in fact competent to stand trial, and we may be able to judge for ourselves whether or not he received a fair trial.

If any one or all of these demands were rejected, that would be grounds in my opinion for considering the charges against Mr. Santiago to be false.  Now don't get me wrong - I think the mass shooting was horrible, and the deaths that occurred are a terrible tragedy.  And I am hoping that the actual perpetrators are caught and brought to justice.  But I don't want this incident to be used in a crass and cynical way to advance the evil agenda of an evil segment of our society.  I like the truth to be told.  Those who also like truth should have no problem with my proposal.

Equipment for Nonviolent Struggle

We have only seventeen days until the inauguration of Donald Trump to the Presidency of the United States.  As I have written previously, it appears that Mr. Trump won the Presidency in a rigged election in which there was significant voter suppression, and in which recount efforts in some battleground states were either blocked by the Trump team or were so severely compromised that they are unreliable.  Mr. Trump campaigned on a platform that was morally repugnant to a majority not only of Americans, but of people throughout the world - especially in the Global South.

Those of us who are the intended targets of his agenda would do well, therefore, to prepare to struggle for the basic human right to live our lives in peace without being scapegoated or molested by imperialists, or white supremacists, or the most powerful members of the Global North, or the wealthiest members of our societies, or even of the dupes of these powerful people, many of whom are poor and are likely to be hurt by the very policies they have been brainwashed into supporting.  As I have said before, in order for the struggle to have maximum effectiveness, it must be nonviolent.

But some will ask, "Can nonviolent resistance actually succeed in this struggle?  Is it really effective?"   To answer that, I will refer you to a few videos and some audio books that you can chew on.  The first is from Dr. Erica Chenoweth of the University of Denver, who defines nonviolent resistance as "...a form of active conflict where unarmed civilians use a variety of nonviolent tactics like strikes, boycotts, protests, stay-aways, demonstrations, and other things, to try to effect political change without using violence or threatening to use physical violence against the opponent."

One of the great strengths of nonviolent struggle is that it is able to recruit a much larger portion of a nation's population than violent conflict.  Chenoweth shows that if the level of participation rises to between two and five percent, the nonviolent movement has at least a 50 percent chance of succeeding.  If the participation level is at five percent or above, the nonviolent struggle becomes almost unstoppable.  When we consider that the official November election results state that only 25 percent of all people of voting age in America voted for Trump, and that even that figure may be overly optimistic, finding five percent of the population that does not want to be molested by a Trump presidency should not be very hard.

Here also is a video of a talk by Jamila Raqib, in which she gives a few humorous, yet highly effective examples of successful nonviolent struggle:

(Disclaimer: although I don't agree with everything in this video, I do agree with her main point concerning the effectiveness of nonviolent struggle.)

There are also audio recordings of two books by Gene Sharp, which were provided by the kind volunteer readers at the Librivox website.  The books are From Dictatorship to Democracy and There Are Realistic Alternatives.  These books are also available in PDF form from the Albert Einstein Institution.  Mr. Sharp constantly stresses the need for comprehensive strategic planning in preparing a nonviolent struggle.  He outlines the need to focus on four planning levels: grand strategy, strategy, tactics and methods.

I hope that these materials may guide fellow resisters in planning a varied, multilevel resistance effort that uses multiple tactics for maximum effect.  One caution regarding social media: Erica Chenoweth makes the point that social media is a great tool in the hands of oppressive regimes, but that resisters should beware of relying overly much on it.

Good luck in your preparations!

The Arrival of Name and Blackeneth

You should never argue with a crazy ma-ma-ma-ma-man,

You oughtta know by now…

– Billy Joel, Movin’ Out

“ ‘And so it was in those days,’ said Brother Reader:

“that the princes of Earth had hardened their hearts against the Law of the Lord, and of their pride there was no end. And each of them thought within himself that it was better for all to be destroyed than for the will of other princes to prevail over his. For the mighty of the Earth did contend among themselves for supreme power over all; by stealth, treachery and deceit they did seek to rule...”

– Walter M. Miller, A Canticle for Leibowitz, “Fiat Lux”

Donald Trump created a bit of a stir over the last few days with some tweets expressing his desire to expand and modernize the U.S. nuclear weapon arsenal. As his aides tried to downplay his words, he countered by offering additional words of “explanation” which increased the alarm of his hearers. Among the things he said are the following:

• He intends to “greatly” expand the number of warheads and delivery systems.
• He does not care whether this action provokes a renewed arms race between the United States and other nations. In his words, “Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all.” And as his soon-to-be White House spokesman said, “I think it’s putting every nation on notice that the United States is going to reassert its position in the globe.”
• Some have recalled his earlier assertions that the United States should not necessarily prevent other nations from acquiring nuclear weapons, and that they should no longer expect to rely on the United States for protection from nuclear threats. (See this and this.)

While the Donald’s words contain plenty of cause for alarm, I have to say that I don’t necessarily view his words in the same way as some of the alarmed voices see them. For many of these voices are the voices of regretful players on the losing end of empire who have pointed to the stabilizing role the United States has played for several decades as the center of empire. Their lament that this stabilizing role is about to come to an end seem to me to be a veiled plea for that empire to continue, a veiled justification of that empire. But while it is quite true that the United States has played a pivotal role in nuclear non-proliferation, and while the work that has been done in that role has been unquestionably good, it is also true that the United States has made a lot of people suffer by reason of its imperialism. Most of those sufferers have been citizens of the “developing world,” a world kept in a continual state of brokenness in order that five percent of the world’s population might consume over 40 percent of the world’s resources. It won’t hurt my ego at all if someone else assumes the role of global leadership for a while – provided, of course, that the next leader is sane, rational and moral.

Trump is not sane, rational or moral. I agree with the alarmists that the Donald’s words are cause for great alarm – for the following reasons.

First, his intention to “greatly strengthen and expand [the U.S.] nuclear capability” would almost certainly be a direct repudiation of the second pillar of the international Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (or NPT) which was ratified in 1970, and to which the United States was one of the signatories. (It seems that Russia may already have repudiated the second pillar.) There is no doubt that the NPT has made the world safer by greatly reducing the risk of nuclear war. Yet even now, there are non-nuclear nations which have long-standing frustrations with the five major nuclear powers (the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France) because of the refusal of the major powers to adhere to the same standard of behavior to which they hold the non-nuclear nations. A decision by the United States to abandon disarmament in favor of increasing the total count of weapons would provide these other nations with ample justification for turning their own backs on the NPT.

Second, the tone of Mr. Trump’s nuke language, combined with many of his previous statements, shows his need to approach his interactions with other nations as the dominator with the biggest stick, rather than as a humble, genuine peacemaker seeking the greatest good for all. This is not likely to go over very well in the world at large, many of whose nations may soon come to feel themselves to be under existential threat because of the actions and attitudes of our incoming Narcissist-In-Chief. And when people feel that their very lives are threatened, they will be prepared to fight back. Maybe that’s why the Donald, who campaigned on an ostensibly isolationist platform, is nonetheless seeking to drastically expand U.S. military spending, and to eliminate budget caps on future military spending. The U.S. military budget is already bigger than the next fifteen largest national military budgets combined. If Trump really is a peacenik, why do we need more troops and hardware?

Third, the creation of a global political climate in which nations felt that they were not significant or were vulnerable to domination unless they each had nuclear weapons would produce the same results on an international level that the massive promotion of gun ownership has had in the United States. (See this also.) The U.S. is not safer as a result of massively increased gun ownership and concealed or open carry laws. Instead, we have found that certain kinds of hotheads gravitate toward gun ownership, and that the fact that these people have guns has greatly increased the chances that the guns will be used – and not for good purpose! How do you feel about having a world of nuclear-armed nations whose leaders say things like, “Why do we make [nukes] if we’re not going to use them?”, or, “You want to be unpredictable [in your potential use of nuclear weapons]”? (Quotes paraphrased from source cited in paragraph.)

Fourth, Mr. Trump has promised to build a “serious missile defense system” to protect the United States from nuclear threats. Perhaps he is hoping that the U.S. could hide itself behind such a system.  However, intercepting nuclear missiles is much harder than it has been made to seem by proponents of missile defense systems.  There are three stages in the flight of a ballistic nuclear missile where the missile could be intercepted by a defense system: boost, ballistic and reentry. But trying to intercept a missile during the reentry phase is, in many respects, waiting until it’s too late. And U.S. attempts to build systems that could intercept a missile during the boost and ballistic phases have uniformly failed. (See this, this, and this.) Is Trump promising to build a system that would actually and reliably work against a modern ICBM? Fuhgeddaboudit.

To me, Trump’s recent military statements can be taken in two ways. First, I think he will treat the United States – with all of its various peoples – as nothing more than a narcissistic extension of himself. Now that he has, by means of a rigged election, graduated to the biggest of the big leagues, he will try to display the biggest persona of them all. At present he receives a great deal of narcissistic supply from his association with Vladimir Putin, who has distinguished himself as another Big Man on a Big Stage. But I suspect that there is also in Trump a feeling of rivalry and envy in his association with Putin and with Russia – an envy with Freudian overtones. A buildup of the U.S. military may be one way by which Trump seeks to resolve that envy and prove to himself that he is the bigger man. Indeed, there are already signs of instability in the relationship between these two narcissists, as indicated in Trump’s response to the thoughts expressed toward him in a recent letter from Putin: “In response to Mr. Putin’s letter, Mr. Trump said that a failure by either side to ‘live up to these thoughts’ would require the United States to ‘travel an alternative path.’” I remember reading how last year, Mr. Putin publicly lectured the West concerning American intervention in the Mideast, pointedly asking, “Do you realize what you’ve done?” However, Mr. Putin’s solution to American imperialism has been to support the political ambitions of a man who is morally unfit to be the President of the United States. Therefore Putin’s “cure” will almost certainly be worse than the disease for which it was intended. A day may soon arrive in which other heads of state pointedly ask Putin, “Do you realize what you’ve done?”

(I used to have a great deal of respect for Putin and his version of Russia, but unfortunately, his mask has slipped. Even though many of his criticisms of the West have validity, I no longer view him as the doctor to be writing prescriptions for anything.)

The second way to look at Trump is to see that deliberately sowing consternation (and confusion) is part of his overall style. He seems to take great pride in being unpredictable. Indeed, he seems to see this unpredictability as a strength. Others don’t necessarily agree. (See this, this and this.) I also have a few thoughts on Mr. Trump and unpredictability, which I will disclose in a future post. In that post, we’ll be climbing back out onto the skinny branches again.

Aggressiveness, insecurity, unpredictability, and nukes – oh, my!

When The First Amendment Is Revoked

A troubling development has surfaced in the preparations being made by the Trump team to seize the White House which they "won" in a rigged election this past November.  It appears that the Trump team issued a list of 74 questions to Department of Energy personnel, asking them to identify which employees and contractors worked on climate change initiatives under President Obama.  Among the items in the questionnaire are the following:

• "Can you provide a list of all Department of Energy employees or contractors who have attended any Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Carbon meetings?  Can you provide a list of when those meetings were and any materials distributed at those meetings, emails associated with those meetings, or materials created by Department employees or contractors in anticipation or as a result of those meetings?"
• "Can you provide a list of Department employees or contractors who attended any of the Conference of the Parties (under the UNFCC (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change)) in the last five years?"
• "Which programs within DOE are essential to meeting the goals of President Obama's Climate Action Plan?"
• "Can you provide a list of the top twenty salaried employees of the lab, with total remuneration and the portion funded by DOE?"
• "Can you provide a list of current professional society memberships of lab staff?"
• "Can you provide a list of all other positions currently held by lab staff, paid and unpaid, including faculties, boards, and consultancies?"

These questions are being asked by the transition team of a President-elect who has vowed to dismantle Obama's climate action policies and who has publicly said that "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive."  It is therefore understandable that the scientists in the Department of Energy are looking at the questionnaire from the incoming Administration in the same way that a flock of chickens might look at a fox who is asking for each chicken's name and address.

However, the point of my post today is not to argue whether climate change is real, or whether, if real, it is being caused by human activity.  (On these two points, the science is indisputable.  As to the consequences we are now reaping, see this, this, and this for instance.)  My point is, rather, whether the scientists who are seeking to do objective, fact-based work at the DOE have good reason to be worried about what a hostile incoming Administration might try to do to them.  For it is well known that Donald Trump is a classic narcissist, and we can also be reasonably certain that most of his inner circle shares his disease.  One of the rules for survival in proximity to a narcissist is this: Don't ever disagree with him.  If you break that rule, be prepared for retaliation.  And if the narcissist not only controls your employment, but also knows all your professional associations and positions held outside of your regular employment, he can majorly ruin your chances of finding any kind of employment in your particular field.  There are many stories around just now of people whose careers were ruined by narcissists or bullies. 

So it will be interesting to see how dissenting scientists fare in the DOE under a Trump administration.  That will tell us how the Trump administration will respond to dissent in general.  Early reports are not encouraging, as seen here, here and here, for example.  I think that it is very likely that we will have to endure an extremely thin-skinned President who is determined to live in the narcissistic bubble of his own fantasy, a President who will explode in narcissistic rage at any fact, reality or person who dares to burst that bubble.  He will be Nixon on steroids.

And for that reason, I think it is prudent for those of us who will have to live under such a President to consider two of Gene Sharp's Methods of Nonviolent Action (from his book How Nonviolent Struggle Works), under the heading of Social Intervention: creating alternative social institutions, and creating alternative communication systems.  What is more, these alternative social institutions and alternative communication networks must be tough, survivable, and able to function even when they are denied access to the resources available to official institutions and communication networks.  It might be a very good idea to ask how you would form a network of people you can rely on when your power to form networks is being interdicted by the State.  It might be a good idea to ask how you can communicate with a wider audience or an audience spread over a wide geographic area when you can't use Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, Blogger, or any other electronic Web-based social media - either because access to these media is denied, or because dissenters who try to use them might wind up getting arrested.  Message in a bottle, anyone?

The Present The Grinch Gave Himself

The post-election "fallout" is getting interesting...First, may God bless Jill Stein for forcing the issue of Donald Trump's illegitimate election victory.  Unfortunately, there are not enough independent recount observers to guarantee a fair recount.  It appears from some reports that Donald Trump's supporters have succeeded in seriously gumming up the works in a number of recount efforts, and have succeeded in getting recounts halted in at least one state.  It also appears that both the CIA and FBI are reporting unmistakable evidence of Russian involvement in influencing the outcome of this election.  However, the Donald remains closed to any such evidence.  Therefore, he is about to enter his Presidency without a shred of any legitimacy in the hearts and minds of a majority of Americans.  That's skating on some thin ice, if you ask me.  Let's see how long he lasts before the ice cracks.

A Thinking Cap for Resisters

In the wake of Donald Trump's ill-gotten capture of the Presidency, it has been mildly interesting to see mainstream television entertainers pleading with Americans to give Donald a chance.  I guess it's only fitting that among his flying monkeys should be people who make a living by acting silly or by pretending to be what they are not.  The Donald fits right in with them, as the former star of a cheesy "reality" TV series.  Those who study dysfunctional family dynamics will also recognize the parallels between the people begging us to give the Donald a chance and those members of dysfunctional families who cover and make excuses for those members of their own families who are the actual cause of family dysfunction. 

The problem is that ever since it was announced that the Donald "won" the Electoral College (with only 25 percent of all people in America of voting age supporting him!), he has had chance after chance to show that he is capable of sane, moral, just and fair leadership.  And every day he has failed the test in one way or another.  Asking the majority of people of voting age in this country to give him a chance sounds a bit like a violent and/or substance-abusing husband asking his wife to give him another chance even when there is no evidence that the husband has begun to do the hard work of repentance.  Those of us who are being asked to "give him a chance" are therefore being asked to ignore the lessons of pattern recognition, to ignore the data points supplied by the trajectory of Donald's life from way back in the day up to the present, to expect that a man who has enthusiastically pursued a course of selfishness and petty evil and has shown no sign of changing his course will suddenly be a different person tomorrow.

Those of us who have to live in this country under a Trump presidency would do well to avoid having any hopeful illusions about him.  I think it would be reasonable to assume that the Donald will try to do just about everything he threatened to do during his campaign.  (The leaders of some of the countries which the Donald threatened during his campaign are assuming that very thing, and have begun to issue warnings that if the new administration revokes certain treaties and agreements, or re-imposes certain sanctions, there will be consequences.)  I think it is also reasonable to assume that many of the more objectionable types who have latched onto Trump and to whom he pandered during his campaign are an accurate reflection of his character.  This means that a large number of us will be targeted for suffering, repression, denial of equal protection, false imprisonment, economic discrimination and threat of physical violence by these types.

Therefore, it will be necessary for us to resist.  Resistance, moreover, is not optional.  If we don't resist, we will suffer for sure.  If we do resist, we may still suffer - but we might also win.

Moreover, the resistance must be nonviolent.  There are ethical and moral reasons for this, especially for those of us who are Christians.  (No, this is not the time for so-called "Christian patriots" to bust out their hardware and their ammo.  If you're in that crowd, grab a clue from Luke 3:14.  By the way, the translation I quoted renders this verse exactly as it is written in the Greek, so don't try to weasel out of it.)

But there are also very pragmatic reasons why the resistance must be entirely nonviolent.  A number of those reasons have been captured in the work of Maria J. Stephan of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, and by and Erica Chenoweth of Wesleyan University.  In a 2008 paper titled, "Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict," Chenoweth and Stephan examined a large number of nonviolent resistance efforts which took place over the last hundred years or so, and discovered the shocking fact that nonviolent resistance movements had a success rate of over 50 percent.  Violent resistance movements, on the other hand, had a success rate of only 26 percent.  In addition, societies which experienced successful nonviolent resistance tended to be much more stable and peaceful afterward than those societies which experienced violent revolution or civil war.  Chenoweth and Stephan have expanded their findings and published them in a book, and there are other researchers who have confirmed their findings as well.

The goal of nonviolent resistance is not necessarily to persuade an oppressive, powerful and violent opponent to "listen to its better angels."  After all, it may not have any "better angels!"  Rather, the goal is to deprive the opponent of its ability to continue its oppression by removing the sources of power of that oppression.

As for the strategy and tactics of nonviolent resistance, there are a number of sources.  (See this and this, for instance.)  One source I have been enjoying over the last few days is How Nonviolent Struggle Works, by Gene Sharp of the Albert Einstein Institution.  How Nonviolent Struggle Works is a short, easy-to-read condensation of a much longer book by Mr. Sharp, who has written several lengthy books on the subject.  If you see yourself as a resister in these days, and you're wondering what to do, Mr. Sharp's short book would be a good place to start.