Throwing Bombs

[G]overnment is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem
-- Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address

Let's see…

Fifty-nine Tomahawk cruise missiles.

At approximately $1,410,000 each for the Navy TLAM variant depending on configuration.

That comes to $83,000,000 and change.

Divide that by the price of a basic model 32Gb iPhone 7, carry the 1, and you get 128,181 Republican healthcare plans…

 

What?

 

Oh, I see.

You don’t think I should be making jokes out of a US missile strike?

Fair enough.

But consider this: The Secretary of State is America’s chief diplomat, responsible for preventing war.

The Secretary of State is Rex Tillerson, the guy who up until three months ago was the CEO of ExxonMobil and who still holds billions in oil industry stock.

Last week, following a major US military strike on Syria and announcement that the US would not be seeking diplomatic solutions to either Syria or North Korea, oil prices on the global market surged up.

Potentially earning Rex Tillerson thousands, maybe millions – depending on how long this goes on.

Let that sink in.

Take all the time you need.

And then you tell me how this isn’t some sick fucking joke.

 

 

I think Donald Trump became President of the United States last night.

Donald Trump. Became president of the United States [Friday] night. After bombing Syria.

You ever wonder why the pundits say this? He truly became president when he ordered that military strike. Oh yes, indeed, he truly became president.

Because that’s how we Americans see it, right? Commander in Chief. A man isn’t truly president until he bombs some people, until he orders the military into action, until he commands America in war. That’s what we mean when we say “became president.”

You ever ask yourself why one doesn’t “become president” by feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, or healing the sick?

I mean, in a supposed Christian nation doesn’t that seem ass-backward to you?

No?

Well, maybe it’s just me.

I guess what gets me most two days later isn’t that we bombed Syria per se. No, given the amount of war and destruction over there, nerve gas and falling bombs, shattered buildings, genocide, mass murder, what’s a few more dead kids at this point? I mean really, right?

No. It’s the hypocrisy.

Sean Hannity in September of 2013 talking about President Obama:

He wasn’t alone in his condemnation of Obama’s action in Syria.

The part that really sells it for me is the subtitle: “President commits impeachable offense.”

Impeachable offense.

Impeachable.

But then that was 2013 and the president was a black liberal, so, yes, I suppose it was indeed an impeachable offense because, really, what wasn’t an impeachable offense back then, amiright?

I digress.

Sean Hannity and Alex Jones, the two sources which most often seem to shape Donald Trump’s viewpoint.

What I’m saying is stay out of Syria.

We should stay out of Syria and stay home, work on our own country.

Don’t attack Syria, that’s nothing but trouble.

No upside to attacking Syria. No, Sir. Nothing but trouble.

And besides, you have to get permission from Congress. Boy oh boy, big mistake if you don’t, Folks. Big mistake.

 

Big mistake.

 

Funny how four years changes your perspective, isn’t it?

Sean Hannity yesterday, when somebody mentioned his 2013 comment.

This is beyond dumb. Let me guess, you loved Obama.

That’s hilarious. And it’s not an actual answer. Why is it beyond dumb? Why is it brilliant strategy for one president and the height of arrogant folly for another? Essentially Hannity just said, it’s okay if Trump does it, but for Obama it’s an impeachable offense.

Don’t get me wrong here, it does make a difference why a president takes a certain action and the same decision can indeed be folly for one and genius for another. We’ll come back to that later. And that’s not what Hannity is saying here. Instead he calls his critic dumb without explanation.

I leave it up to you to figure out why that might be.

Trump strikes Syrian base. But, let’s wait and see. No impeachable offense subtitles here either. Just “analysis.”

Yes, indeed, funny how perspectives change.

 

In September of 2013, Paul Ryan was staunchly opposed to any action against Syria and he wasn’t shy about saying so.

About the only guy who hasn’t changed positions is Senator John McCain.

He’s just grateful we finally got to blow up some Syrians. 

He gets cranky when we’re not bombing people…

 

You again? What now?

 

I see.

Okay. Fine.

Enough snark.  People are dying, I should be serious. Fair enough.

Then let us be serious.

Here’s the thing: We do need to take action in Syria.

The world needs to take action.

This atrocity has gone on long enough.  More than long enough. The Syrian regime, backed by the Russians, has been killing its own people for as long as I can remember. As far back as when I was a junior Navy intelligence operator patrolling the Eastern Mediterranean, 30 years ago, and long before that.

So we do need to something. We’re all agreed on that.

Aren’t we?

Okay, well, maybe we’re not unanimous after all, but enough people agree on intervention that the guy in the White House, whoever he or she might be, feels pressure to do … something.

Politically, a politician in that position, be it Obama or Trump, has to do something.

Obama tried, despite the unpopularity of yet another war, despite the unwillingness of Republicans then (as opposed to Republicans now). But he made the mistake of asking Congress for permission.

Oh, it was the right thing to do, the Constitutional thing to do, asking Congress for permission.

But it was still a mistake.

Congress washed its bloody red hands of Syria. It’s not our problem they said, Syria hasn’t attacked us. Republicans were more concerned with sticking it to Obama than they were the slaughter of innocents. So they tried to tie Obama’s hands and then mocked him for his supposed inaction. And if that wasn’t enough, conservatives then tried to fence in those innocents being slaughtered in Syria, the ones who were trying to escape the horror which we allow to go unchecked, and then crowed about their supposed morality. Got to keep America safe they said.

So, in retrospect, it would be easy to say Obama didn’t do enough.

And in fact, plenty of people are saying exactly that. Such as an article yesterday in the New York Post by Michael Goodwin which details Obama’s complete and total failure to act in Syria.

[A]s measured by the loss of life and global impact, nothing compares with Obama’s failure in Syria. His refusal to lift a finger opened the door to perhaps the largest humanitarian crises since World War II.

The scope of Goodwin’s judgement is educational. As measured by the loss of life and global impact, nothing compares with Obama’s failure in Syria? Really? Nothing? Not even the failures of the guy who started a war based on false intelligence and had no plan for what happened after he ousted Saddam and which eventually gave rise to ISIS itself? What about 70 years of failed Middle Eastern foreign policy beginning with a newly minted CIA who in 1953 toppled the elected government of Iran and put the Shah on his throne and which led directly and inevitably to where we are today? It seems to me there’s enough blame to go around.

His refusal to lift a finger, says Goodwin.

Implying that Obama should have defied Congress and taken action, risking impeachment if necessary. He didn’t, and that part is on him. Right?

Except … that’s exactly what he did.

Obama did defy Congress and acted to the limits of his authority at the risk of impeachment.

In fact, the last year Barack Obama was president, his administration dropped an estimated twenty-six thousand bombs on Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq and the CIA spent roughly a billion dollars training Syrian rebels. Which is why a lot of the wacky far Left (along with the Right) called Obama a warmonger and why they were afraid Hillary Clinton would be too and thus they refused to vote for her.  Far right Trump supporters and far left liberals alike seized on Clinton’s supposed hawkishness and declared with all due horror that if she was elected, she’d start a war in the first month of her presidency – and they called me a son of bitch right here on Stonekettle Station and on my various social media sites for suggesting Trump would be worse.

You all remember this, right?

Trump promised he’d come up with a plan for defeating ISIS. Great plan, Folks, gonna be so great.

“We are going to convene my top generals and give them a simple instruction. They will have 30 days to submit to the Oval Office a plan for soundly and quickly defeating ISIS. We have no choice.”

Sure, you remember that, right?

Now how, exactly, Trump plans on defeating the Islamic State without a war is utterly beyond me, but then he’s the guy who knows more about ISIS than the generals and I’m not.

And Trump made good on that promise.

Yes he did.

He didn’t promise to defeat ISIS in the first 30 days, he promised to convene the generals within 30 days and order them to come up with a plan.

And he did.

Or close enough.

On January 28, 2017,  eight days after assuming office, Trump signed a presidential memorandum ordering “within 30 days, a preliminary draft of the Plan to defeat ISIS shall be submitted to the president by the secretary of defense.”

And 30 days later, on February 27th, 2017, The Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, along with the nation’s “top generals” met with Trump to discuss a preliminary plan.

The next day, Trump addressed Congress,

"As promised, I directed the Department of Defense to develop a plan to demolish and destroy ISIS, a network of lawless savages that have slaughtered Muslims and Christians and men, and women and children of all faiths and all beliefs. We will work with our allies, including our friends and allies in the Muslim world, to extinguish this vile enemy from our planet."

Now, the particulars of the plan are naturally classified and nobody really knows what it is, other than Trump’s promise it’ll be great, Folks, just great. But given the primary architect is General James Mattis and the “top generals” one could reasonably assume it’ll be a military solution and not a diplomatic one.

You don’t want to call that war?

Fine by me. We called 58,000 dead American servicemen and 20 years in Vietnam a police action, so why not?

In the meantime, look around. Notice anything missing?

It’s been three days since the US fired 59 missiles at Syria.

What haven’t you seen?

The United States attacked a foreign country.

We attacked a sovereign nation without provocation.

Yes, we did.

That’s the President of the United States, the guy who ordered the attack.

Syria attack.

It’s right there. Those are his words.

Attack. We attacked Syria. That’s what President Donald Trump said . We attacked Syria.

Not in self defense.

Not in defense of our allies.

Not a reprisal for an attack on our nation or people.

Not a response to some transgression against our national security.

Not part of a larger international mission in support of those caught in the middle. 

Not an action sanctioned by the United Nations or a coalition forged to end the violence.

This wasn’t a single missile lobbed at a chemical weapons factory. This was an attack, a barrage of missiles fired in force at a sovereign country from US warships.

Attack.

According to international law, an attack is an act of war.

The president of the United State just admitted to an act of war … via Twitter.

Words matter.

So, it’s been three days, Citizen. What haven’t you seen?

I asked that question on Twitter and it took more than a hundred responses before somebody figured it out.

Before somebody finally realized that the President has yet to formally address the nation.

I mean, we attacked another country, don't you find it odd that the guy who gave the order hasn't explained why to the American people?

 

 

Oh, sure, he informed Congress via memo and gave a brief prepared public statement from the golf course at Mar-a-Lago on the night of the attack:

My fellow Americans: On Tuesday, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad launched a horrible chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians. Using a deadly nerve agent, Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women and children. It was a slow and brutal death for so many. Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack. No child of God should ever suffer such horror.

Tonight, I ordered a targeted military strike on the airfield in Syria from where the chemical attack was launched.

It is in this vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons.

There can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons, violated its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and ignored the urging of the UN Security Council. Years of previous attempts at changing Assad's behavior have all failed, and failed very dramatically. As a result, the refugee crisis continues to deepen and the region continues to destabilize, threatening the United States and its allies.

Tonight, I call on all civilized nations to join us in seeking to end the slaughter and bloodshed in Syria, and also to end terrorism of all kinds and all types.

We ask for God's wisdom as we face the challenge of our very troubled world. We pray for the lives of the wounded and for the souls of those who have passed. And we hope that as long as America stands for justice, then peace and harmony will, in the end, prevail. Goodnight. And God bless America and the entire world. Thank you.

But that’s not an explanation.

It sort of sounds like an explanation, but it’s not.

Let’s take it apart:

1. Trump says there is “no dispute” Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons on “beautiful babies” and the children of God.

Actually, while there’s little disputing chemical weapons were used, there is some questions as to its origin. It’s possible that it didn’t come from the Assad regime.

Now, the odds are pretty high Assad did indeed use nerve gas on his own people, but Trump says there’s “no dispute.”  No question.

Now, given that Donald Trump has a history of making definitive statements that later turn out to be somewhat less than evidence based, and given that he ordered an attack on a foreign nation based on this supposed non-disputed information, and given that attacking a Middle Eastern country tends to result in unexpected side effects (all bad) and increased terrorism in response – a consequence we might all have to suffer – and given that this might lead to war, don’t you think the President owes us a detailed explanation of this supposed evidence?

2.  Trump ordered a military strike. He said it was “in the vital national interest of the United States” to deter and prevent the “spread” of chemical weapons.

So if disabling the airfield wasn’t the objective, then what was?

Look here, I don’t disagree that it’s in our national interest to deter the spread of chemical weapons. But we’ve been down this road before – I know, I was there when we invaded Iraq to prevent the use and spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Remember how that turned out? So I don’t think it unreasonable to expect the President to explain to the American people how exactly firing 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian airbase that was warned in advance and essentially deserted and left undamaged and remains fully operational, how does that achieve this objective?  

Honestly, how was this attack supposed to prevent the “spread” of chemical weapons?

And since the attack appears to be a wash, what now?

No, really, what now?

I mean, isn’t it still in our vital national interest to prevent the use and spread of WMDs?

So, if the attack failed to achieve that objective, then what do we do next?

And if somehow, despite reports, the attack did achieve the objective, well, isn’t that a victory for Trump and freedom and national security and shouldn’t we know?

Again, don’t you think we as Americans are entitled to know?

3.  He called on other nations to – all “civilized” nations – to join us in seeking to end the slaughter and bloodshed in Syria, and also to end terrorism of all kinds and all types.

What’s that mean?

No, really, what does that mean?

Because it sounds an awful lot like a coalition. Like the kind we formed to invade Afghanistan and Iraq – especially when he followed it with that “may God have mercy on our souls” bit there at the end like Morgan Freeman in Deep Impact explaining how the mission to blow up the asteroid had failed and that we were all basically doomed – and given that Mad Dog Mattis is in charge of the plan, well, I think maybe some additional explanation is in order, don’t you?

I deliberately waited three days to write this, waiting to see if there was some detailed explanation forthcoming.

A Tweet or two doesn’t cut it.

Because we have been down this road, over and over and over.

You can’t drop democracy on people with a B-52.

We tried. We’ve been lobbing missiles or dropping bombs on Third World countries for 70 years now. Conservative presidents do it. Liberal Presidents do it. It’s not part of some larger long-term strategy to bring peace and freedom to the world, it might have been at one time but it sure isn’t now.   It doesn’t work. It never works. But we keep doing it. Because we have the power and we don’t know what else to do.

And it’s getting worse.

Back in Korea and Vietnam, there was this nebulous strategy of “Containment.”

We had to contain the communists, lest the dominos fall and the Marxists take over the world.

We still had this vague idea that winning meant the conflict ended. Somebody, hopefully us, won.

But with every year that passed those already ambiguous objectives became even less defined until they were literally indeterminate.

And today we fight this endless, undefined, unending Global War on Terrorism that seemingly has no plan, no defined objectives, and no end point. It’s impossible to win. We lob missiles into other countries without even caring if they hit anything, because we can, because we don’t know what else to do, and a certain segment of our population cheers this as strength.

There’s no plan.

Oh, there are short term military goals. Sure. But there’s no larger strategic vision – not even one as simplistic as “contain the commies.”

Iraq is a perfect example of this.

We, the military, we did our duty.

We did our job with distinction.

We were in Baghdad in 28 days. We won the war and they did indeed cheer us in the streets.

And then it all went to hell.

Because there was no plan for after. There was no plan for peace. There was no plan for civilization. There was no plan for nation building. And so it all fell apart. You can’t just blow up a civilization, burn it to rubble, and expect liberty and stable government to spring from the ashes. But that’s exactly what we did expect.

And now things are worse.

And as a direct result, we’re looking at another war in Syria.

 

That’s the problem with revolutionaries, you know.

 

It’s easier to punch people in the face than to compromise with somebody you hate.

You ever ask yourself why one doesn’t “become president” by feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, or healing the sick?

You ever wonder why a man only “becomes president” by commanding the military into action?

I mean, war is easy.

It’s always easier to go to war than not.

War is always easier than diplomacy.

Burning it down is easy.

Destruction is easy.

Revolution is easy.

It’s far easier to be an arsonist than an architect.

It’s what comes after that’s hard. It’s feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, healing the sick that’s the hard part. And yet, that’s the part which makes war unnecessary in the first place.

Ironic, isn’t it? Trump invoked the Christian God of his followers as justification for a military strike.

“No child of God should ever suffer such horror […] We ask for God's wisdom as we face the challenge of our very troubled world. We pray for the lives of the wounded and for the souls of those who have passed”

Ironic, isn’t it, that so many of the conservative Christians Trump is specifically addressing with those comments seem to miss that their God had to send his only begotten Son down here to teach that lesson, feed the hungry, clothe the poor, heal the sick, because that’s the hard part. War? Destruction? We didn’t need any almighty deity in the sky to teach us about that. This god Trump speaks of as justification, that god didn’t send down the Archangel Gabriel to teach the generals how to war. Any mortal could figure that out. No, it was the other part, the part that comes after, that is so difficult it supposedly took direct intervention from God.

That’s the difference between Trump and the men who founded this country.

Trump is certainly no George Washington, no Thomas Jefferson (and please, no Benedict Arnold comments).

Hell, he’s not even Ronald Reagan. But that’s who they’re comparing him to today.

All I can say about this president is he has the instincts of Ronald Reagan in many ways. He’s an emotional man, but he’s also a very smart man.
-- Senator Lindsey Graham, to reporters following the Syria strike

And that’s the whole problem.

Trump has the instinct of Reagan coupled to the emotion of a revolutionary.

That quote, the one from Reagan at the top of this piece? Government is not the solution to our problem: government is the problem. That one?

Government is the problem.

That’s Trump. That’s the people who elected him. They invoke Reagan as justification for burning down government and lobbing missiles into the Middle East.

Except that’s not what Reagan said.

Well, it is, but that’s not all he said. You see, the entire quote goes like this:

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem

In this present crisis.

Reagan was speaking to a specific problem, that is the economic malaise of his time. He was talking specifically about the economic philosophy of what would become known as Reaganomics. And while he was certainly a proponent of the traditional conservative principles of free markets and small government, he believed in good government as a fundamental foundation stone of civilization.

Reagan, whatever his flaws, wanted to be a nation builder and when he fired missiles into Libya, it was as part of a larger, well thought out strategy with specific objectives. Reagan, again whatever his flaws and agree with his methods or not, set in motion the process which led directly to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Reagan, whatever his failings, had a powerful and cohesive vision.

Yes, unfortunately, side effects of Reagan’s strategy are many of the problems we face today in the Middle East. I’m not arguing that, or putting Reagan on a pedestal. Good or bad, what I’m saying is that Ronald Reagan was trying to build a better world for all – even if you and I might not agree with his vision, he had one.

Trump has none of Reagan’s vision and certainly none of the Founders’ intellect.

All he has is instinct.

And emotion.

Reagan fired missiles. So, Trump fires missiles and has no real understanding of why. And the proof is that he hasn’t even tried to explain his actions, because he himself doesn’t really understand why he did it or what it was supposed to accomplish.

Trump builds casinos, not nations.

And he’s largely surrounded himself with others who are similarly limited in vision and in intellect, all they have is an instinct for destruction.

It’s a council of bomb throwers.

For the Revolutionaries who forged America, war was a means to an end. And that end was a new and better nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the principle … well, maybe they fell a little short back then but, yeah, that. They were nation builders.

Two and half centuries later, we have become a nation of bomb throwers. Literally and figuratively.

For us, war is no longer a means to an end, it is the end. It’s what we do, endlessly.

We no longer even expect our leaders to explain why in any detail.

This is the natural end result of a mentality which believes

I think Donald Trump became President of the United States last night.

And the worst part is that Trump’s Syria attack is a metaphor for everything else.

Unpresidented

This morning's Twitter Rampage from Big Giant Leader

 

There was electronic surveillance of Trump and the people close to Trump.

Yes, the odds are pretty high that there was electronic surveillance of Donald Trump and the people close to him.

This is unprecedented.

Yes and no.

It is unprecedented in certain regards, we’ll get to that later, but in the manner Trump meant it, well, he’s wrong.

It’s not unprecedented.

Not at all.

In fact, this is how it’s done every day.

Remember the Patriot Act?

Remember the Protect America Act?

Remember when we as Americans decided we wanted to relax the rules regarding monitoring of American citizens because we were terrified for our national security?

Remember when we said we wanted a whole lot more monitoring? And we gave the National Security Agency a massively increased budget and basically free rein to listen in on pretty much everything?

Remember?

Sure you do. It was all wrapped in the same package with warrantless wiretaps and mass collection of phone and email data, mass monitoring of the internet, searching people’s library records. Never again. We had to be safe. Remember?

And the guy currently in charge of this process – that is to say, intelligence collection – is the president.

Which means, if Trump didn’t routinely skip out on his intel briefings and hadn’t alienated the Intelligence Community on his first day in office, well, he’d have people to explain all of this.

 

The thing is that for an Administration which denies any connections to Russia, there sure are a lot of Russians around here lately.

 

Look here: The Intelligence Community of the United States and its allies monitors our adversaries.

Surprised?

I didn’t think so.

The Intelligence Community monitors our adversaries.

They’d better, that’s their job.

Now before we go any further, a note about the terms: When I say adversaries, I don’t mean enemies, or rather not just declared enemies. I mean adversaries. This is an important definition, because you, the layman, typically thinks of intelligence collection aimed only at enemies foreign and maybe domestic. But if we waited to gather information only until after that moment when some potential threat becomes our declared enemy, well, we’d be far, far behind the curve and a lot of Americans could die.

It is the Intelligence Community’s primary job to see enemies before they become enemies.

And so the Intelligence Community monitors not only active threats, but potential threats as well. Adversaries.

Now, if you’re paying attention, then the next question is: define “threat” as you just used it.

Threats are those foreign (and sometimes domestic) political, military, criminal, economic, geographic, and religious entities that are ideologically opposed to, in conflict with, potentially in conflict with, or in competition (benign or violent) with our interests. We call those targets adversaries.

Wait just a damned minute, Jim, I hear you say. I thought intelligence dealt primarily with military stuff. What’s this bit about “geographic” or “religious” or “economic?”

Fair enough. Let’s say we were dependent on some material that we can only get from a foreign entity. Something vital that affects our entire economy, our entire way of life, our very existence as a nation in its current form. We could maybe use other stuff, but we’d have to create an entire industry to support it. We’d have to switch over. We’d have to change minds and look for new ideas and frankly, it’s just easier and cheaper to keep being dependent on this foreign produced thing.  And the same is true of our allies. 

So, don’t you want to know if the countries you get that stuff from are turning hostile to you? Or if they got a better offer for this vital product from somebody else? What if they like you, but are hostile to your allies? Or your adversaries? Because if your adversaries can’t get the resources they need, they might just might invade their neighbors in order to take it by force, and then they might suddenly become your enemy (see Japan, WWII, reasons for).

Or maybe, that stuff, comes from a friendly country, but you have to ship it through hostile territory via a vulnerable pipeline or in giant vulnerable tankers through a narrow chokepoint controlled by hostile religious fanatics (see: Oil, Iran, Arabian Gulf, Straits of Hormuz)? You should maybe know something about the geography and who controls it and what they might do, yeah?

What’s that?

Pump that stuff out of the ground in our own country?

Sure, we could do that. Except the price of that stuff is set by global supply and demand.  And the stuff isn’t the same everywhere and it’s a lot harder to get it out of the ground here than it is there. And harder translates to costs more, a lot more. But you grant a bunch of leases anyway and you dump billions into spinning up the industry. You start punching expensive holes in the ground … and your adversaries all get together and triple their output, the price of the stuff drops to near record lows. And your domestic industry starts going bankrupt. Do you continue on? Bail out the industry. Hope that our pockets are deeper than theirs? And if we can just hold on long enough, maybe they’ll go bust and we’ll own the market. I mean, how do you know? What’s that? Bomb ‘em? We can’t bomb them. Those people aren’t our enemies, they are our economic adversaries. So maybe, just maybe, the intelligence community should be gathering information on foreign economies and industrial capacity, so that our political leaders can help our economic leaders make the right choices. See?

This is the entire reason for the intelligence community's existence, that is: to provide national leaders with timely, accurate, and comprehensive information on our adversaries so that those leaders can make informed decisions.

And yes, that previous sentence includes President Trump. Or it should.

 

So, we monitor our adversaries.

 

This is not a secret.

The means, the methods, the specifics, those are highly classified.

But the fact that we monitor our adversaries isn’t a secret and we’d be utter fools not to.

Therefore, it follows that if you contact entities under surveillance, you get monitored too.

If you, as an American, contact an adversarial agency that is subject to monitoring, then you get monitored too.

Let me give you a couple of examples:

Example A: All communications into and out of a war zone (let's say Syria) might be monitored.

You, Father Joe Jesuspants, leader of The American Christian Ministry For The Salvation of Little Brown Baby War Orphans, wants to provide humanitarian aid to non-combatants caught in the conflict and maybe convert some heathens to Jesus along the way.

So, you call the Syrian government for permission to travel to Aleppo.

Naturally, your call, your email, whatever, is collected as part of normal surveillance of a hostile foreign power.

You weren’t a target. The intelligence community wasn’t looking for you. But you called a lawfully authorized target of surveillance and you were recorded as part of that process like some Regular Joe walking into a bank that was in the process of being robbed. Until they sort it out, the cops can’t tell if you’re an unlucky bystander or one of the robbers.

This is called "incidental collection" or "incidental intercept."

Now, you didn't do anything wrong (providing you actually didn't do anything wrong in accordance with American, Syrian, and international law regarding humanitarian aid to a country in a warzone). You're a known Christian relief organization. You called a foreign government asking for information. Pretty innocuous.

Example B:  International communications from inside the US to the governmental agencies of a lawfully designated foreign adversary (designated by congress and the president and subject to monitoring via Executive Order) might be monitored for the reasons noted above.

You, General Joe War-Eagle, are now a retired general and a business man.

We do business with this lawfully designated adversary. They do business with us. This is all legal and in accordance with various international laws, treaties, and free trade agreements.  The beauty of capitalism is that you can still do business with people you regard as adversaries (Ask me about that time I watched Libyan forces armed with French weapons that they bought from the French attacking French forces defending Chad. The French love doing business with people who are trying to kill them. That’s capitalism, Folks. I digress).

So, anyway, this adversary would like to sell stuff in the United States but, well, Americans don’t really trust them. So they need a native guide, they need an American representative. And there you are, Former General War-Eagle, Americans love you, you’re a hero and a patriot. So this foreign outfit offers you a lot of money to do something that’s perfectly legal. So you do. Because why not? But that means you spend a lot of time on the phone, in email, receiving electronic fund transfers, with an entity that is the target of the Intelligence Community.

Sooner or later, you’re going to end up as incidental collection.

 

And then what?

 

Is it a crime, treason, to rescue war orphans or work for a Russian oil company?

No.  Of course not.

What happens if you get picked up in incidental collection is this:  As soon as it's determined that a) you're an American (and thus would require a FISA warrant to monitor, which would require pretty specific and difficult to obtain probable cause), b) it was an incidental intercept, and c) your actions are innocent and of no national interest, then the recordings and data are immediately scrubbed.

Yes, they are.

Yes. They. Are.

I have direct experience with this process. Extensive experience with this process.

While there is always shady shit going at the senior levels (because that is the nature of politicians, preachers, and generals), the guys in the trenches are absolutely scrupulous about this. Because while the aforementioned senior folks get to retire with full pay if they get caught violating the law, the guys doing the work go to jail if they break the rules. And I've seen it happen.

So, if the incidental intercept is innocent, it’s immediately erased.

Now, while the data itself is dumped, the Intelligence Community keeps a record of the incident.

Why?

For several reasons:

One, for legality's sake – exactly as you're seeing right now with the Trump Administration. If you accuse the government of monitoring your Christian relief organization (or your big gaudy golden dick-shaped tower in Manhattan) and you decide to sue over it, well, the only way for the government to prove its actions were lawful and that it followed the rules is to keep a record of exactly what occurred.

Two, if it later turns out that your Christian relief organization is a front for running guns to Syrian loyalists in violation of US, Syrian, and international law, and some senator on a crusade decides to "investigate" why the president didn't catch this (or why, say, we didn’t get wind of a bunch of shitheads with box cutters who were planning on flying some airliners into some skyscrapers, for example), well, those records will become important (this is the kind of stuff those committees are looking at in closed door sections). Yes, we monitored a phone call between x and y, but y was an American citizen and deemed of no intelligence value and so the data from y was erased in accordance with the rules set by congress and Executive Order. See?

Three, you can’t plot a curve from one point, or even two (generally speaking). But sometimes things that appear innocent individually, aren’t when put into a larger context. In other words, you being picked up in incidental collection once is something that happens. Twice, it’s a coincidence. Three times … well, there are no coincidences in intelligence work.  Let me give you an example. There’s a protest that turns violent. You happen to be passing by just when shit gets lit on fire and the windows are broken. The police arrest you for rioting. Upon questioning, it turns out you were on your way to visit your dear old grandma and you just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. So they let you go. No charges. But they keep a record. Next riot, there you are again. Crazy, officer, how these riots keep happening by Granny’s house, isn’t it? If every time there’s a riot you’re in the neighborhood, it’s not a coincidence, you’re up to something even if we can’t exactly catch you at it. That, might be enough for a warrant to look further.  Same thing with incidental collection. Every time we listen into a warzone, there you are.  Every time we listen to the Russians, there you are, there your friends are, there your business associates are. Now, even if we didn’t keep a recording of the actual words of the call (or the email) the fact that you keep contacting an adversary, might indicate something’s up even if the individual calls seem innocent. And that might be enough for a FISA warrant to dig deeper. That’s how you catch drug smugglers and mafia dons and spies.  Or not, maybe you’re calling the Russians because you do business with them and it’s all legal and aboveboard. Maybe we keep finding you in warzones because that’s what you do, you help people in warzones.  Maybe you’re at every riot because you’re an independent news photographer. But if we don’t look, we don’t know.  Spies, terrorists, criminals, they depend on us not looking.

And finally Four, the nature of intelligence collection is that it’s like one of those hoarders you read about. House crammed full of useless stuff. Most of the time, most of the information you gather is useless. Just random bits and pieces that may or may not be part of some larger whole like assembling a jigsaw puzzle in the dark when you don’t know how many pieces there are, how many you actually have, if the pieces you have actually all go the same puzzle, if some of the pieces are shared by multiple puzzles, and you have no idea what the picture on the puzzle is supposed to be and besides it’s probably in a language you don’t speak, and also the guy who made the puzzle is trying to keep you from solving it by hiding pieces and feeding you wrong pieces. Also, at the same time, all of your friends are shouting suggestions and your crazy boss is telling you what he thinks it is based on his politics and not on, you know, actual information. And if you manage to assemble a picture, well, it may turn out that you’re not interested that picture after all and you just wasted your time. That’s intelligence work in the real world. It’s hard. It’s frustrating. But sometimes that useless information becomes … useful.  Let me give you an example: Some guy in the White House nominates you for a federal job that requires congressional review and a security clearance. So you fill out the SF-86 (security clearance paperwork) and you testify before the committee and they ask you: in the last ten years have you had any contact with [insert adversary name here]. And you answer, under oath, no. No I have not. No contact. Nope. And while that might satisfy a sympathetic senator, the people tasked with checking that SF-86 are a lot more thorough. And they run something called a National Agency Check with Inquires, especially if you’re the guy applying for the job of, oh, let’s say, National Security Advisor. And that’s when it pops out of the database, wait, what’s this? You said you haven’t had contact with [insert adversary here] but we’ve got all these incidents of incidental collection. What the fuck? Now, we dumped the data so we don’t know what was said, but we damned well know you just lied your ass off to congress and on your security paperwork. Care to explain that, General War-Eagle? I mean if it was innocent, legal, aboveboard, why did you lie about it? Perhaps we should look further.

So, the point here is that if you contact adversaries of America, innocently or otherwise, the odds are high that you'll be caught up in incidental collection.

 

If you aren’t, then the Intelligence Community isn’t doing its goddamned job.

 

"@FoxNews from multiple sources: 'There was electronic surveillance of Trump, and people close to Trump. This is unprecedented.' @FBI"

These people should be monitored.

If you contact our adversaries, then you should be monitored too.

Let me repeat that: If you contact our adversaries, then you get monitored too, even if only incidentally. 

Trump is right, it is unprecedented that so many people near a presidential candidate and president elect were monitored.

Because it’s unprecedented that so many people near Trump were in contact with our adversaries.

What is unprecedented here is that so many people so close to the President of the United States have so many ties to foreign power brokers and were therefore caught up in intelligence collection.

It is unprecedented that so many people so close to Donald Trump have been in the employment of foreign agents and foreign governments and foreign adversaries.

And it is unprecedented that not a single day goes by where we don’t learn of yet another adversarial foreign connection to this administration.

Once is happenstance.

Twice is coincidence.

Three times is … well, there are no coincidences in intelligence work.

Perhaps it is innocent.

Yes, perhaps it is. That is a possibility – increasingly unlikely but still possible.

But if we don’t look, we will never know for certain.

Winning Civilization

 

What then, the price of civilization?

"Jim Wright you said we need to compromise with those [who] voted for Trump. How? If they are truly okay that Trump lied where are the grounds to start?"
-- Margaret B. Munday, from comments under a post in the Stonekettle Station Facebook Group

How do we compromise with those who voted for Trump?

Not just those who voted for Trump, but especially if those conservatives don’t honestly care that he’s engaged in deliberate falsehoods?

Particularly if they themselves know President Trump’s statements to be false?

This question was prompted by two things, the previous essay here on Stonekettle Station, No Man’s Land, and a Facebook post I wrote regarding an article by Daniel Dale at The Star which detailed Trump supporters who openly believe Donald Trump is deliberately lying as part of some elaborate chess game.

In No Man’s Land (and two previous essays, Bug Hunt and Red Sea) I suggested liberals will have to compromise with conservatives in order to win back not only the White House, but Congress and the Supreme Court.

Daniel Dale’s article interviewed a number of Trump voters in economically depressed Newark, Ohio, who say they know the president is lying, for example about being “wiretapped” by former President Obama. They know Trump’s claim is a lie. They know it. They don’t think Trump was mistaken, they think he lied on purpose. And they think that’s great. They think Trump is deliberately lying as part of a larger strategy to shake up Washington and send liberals and the media (both of whom they regard as the enemy) into some kind of tizzy. A sentiment summed up by retired factory worker John Tolliver,  

“What he was wanting to do was keep things stirred up so it was all confused. He said he was going to do that from the time he started running for the election. That’s what it’s going to take. When they’re confused, they don’t know what they’re doing, they’re going to make a mistake, and he’s going to grab them.”

How do we compromise with people like that?

Margaret isn't the only person to ask this question.

I've got hundreds of emails, hundreds of comments on Facebook and here on Stonekettle Station asking the same question or some variation of the same.

You said we need to compromise with those who voted for Trump. How?

Well, that is the question, isn’t it?

But that's not exactly what I said.

Though I do acknowledge that since a rather large number of people took it that way, perhaps I could have been a bit more specific.

 

So, let me be more specific.

 

First, let's start with three basic goals:

1. We want to win back the White House

2. AND after we win the White House, we'd like to get something done

3. AND after we get stuff done, we want it to be a foundation for further advancement instead of being erased next time we’re out of power.

Good so far?

I'll assume none of you have any major issues with those goals.

So,

1. WIN THE WHITE HOUSE

To win the presidency, you have to win the Electoral College.

No. NO. Stop. Focus. We're not going to argue, here, now, if the Electoral College is a good idea or not. It is what it is and you have to win it to be president and vice president. The popular vote is nice, but it won't get you into the Oval Office. To win the White House, you need to win the Electoral College. See Trump.

After you win, you can talk about Amendments to the Constitution, but first you have to win big enough to even have that discussion in the first place.

To win the presidency, you have to win the Electoral College – I repeat myself since many Americans don’t seem to know this.

To win the Electoral College you need to win the state governments who appoint the Electors.

Which means you need to win back some of that sea of red in the middle of the county.

Which is why I use the map I used in the previous essays.

Now, many of you want to argue about that map.

You want me to use a map of voting districts instead.

Ok, here you go.

Image attributed to Daily Kos

The thing is: no matter how you look at that map, country, voting district, state, whatever, the whole damned middle of the country is red.

Now, you tell me that’s not really what’s going on. You tell me it’s not really just red or blue.

You're right.

But you're wrong too.

It might not be that cut and dried at the people level, but it actually is either red or blue when it comes to Electoral College votes. See Trump et al.  

 

The Electoral College picks the president and vice president and there you have it, right there.

However, if you're right and when you look at people instead of maps it really is more purple and not nearly so binary, then it should an achievable goal to win over enough of those people to swing the balance of the state. Reagan did it. Obama did it.

You need the states.

You need the red ones.

You need the states for two reasons: (A) to win the Electoral College, and (B) (see below).

Now, for (A) some of the people you need to win over, ALREADY CAN'T STAND DONALD TRUMP.

Yes, they’re conservatives and they voted for him, but they really, really don’t like him.

Maybe they voted for him because they always vote for the Republican no matter what. I know many people just like this. They hate Trump, but they are mortified at the idea anybody would think them anything but a loyal Republican. If the GOP ran Robot Cannibal Hitler's Head in a Pickle Jar, they'd vote for it because they're Republicans. To them the idea of being called a liberal is … disgraceful. 

Maybe they voted for Trump because they didn't think he'd be this bad. Those people are fools, maybe, but that’s human nature. And being a fool isn’t a capital crime – or it shouldn’t be. Sometimes being a fool is how you learn not to be a fool in the future.

Maybe they voted for him because while they don't like him, they purely hated Hillary Clinton (Don't. Just don't start with the Bernie bullshit. Neither Sanders nor Clinton is ever going to be President. Move on)

Look here, there are plenty of decent conservatives who voted for Trump for whatever reason who are now suffering buyer's remorse.

A lot of them didn't want to buy Trump in the first place but they felt they had no choice.

What?

What’s that?

They’re not “decent?”

Okay. Whatever. You know, a whole bunch of liberals were ready to embrace Glenn Beck a few months back when he pretended to turn over a new leaf. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Any ally in the fight, they said. So, let’s not argue about decent, shall we?

Here’s the really funny part: some of those people voted for Obama last time.

Think about that.

It should be possible with the right candidate (don’t start) and the right message (I mean it) and a willingness to listen (you may read that as compromise) to win those people over. To get some of them to change parties or cross party lines. It's happened before, both ways. It can be done.

Some conservatives didn't bother to vote at all.

Many are disgusted with the GOP (and the Democratic Party too). As I noted in the last essay, those town halls that Republicans refuse to show up for? Those are opportunities for liberals, for progressives, for Democrats. But you have to show up, even if the Republican congressman doesn't -- especially if the congressman doesn't.

So, again, it should be possible to win those people over.

And here’s the real kicker: if you can't win those people over now then you never will and you might as well just give up. Get used to it. Get used to losing your rights, get used to war, get used to the rich raping the rest of us, get used it.

Or, you can try to find common ground.

The fanatics? The nuts? The howling stormtrumpers with their KKK hats and Nazi salutes? The evangelical zealots who are right now trying to convince themselves that Trump is some kind of Christian loved by their insane drooling genocidal freak of a God? No. No. NO. Of course you're not going to win over those people, you're stupid to even try. And why the hell would you want to in the first place? I don't want Nazis on our team. You can't compromise with those people, they're assholes, and I suggested no such thing.

But if you can't win over some of that red in the middle of the country, if you’re not even willing to try, well then you'd better get used to Nazis in the White House.

 

2. GET SHIT DONE

Now, once you do win the White House (we’re being optimistic here) you want to get stuff done. You want to pass laws and fix things and generally make life better for everybody.

Otherwise, what's the point, right?

To do that, it's not enough to just win the White House.

Anybody who was warm and breathing during the last six years of the Obama Administration should know that it’s not enough to just win the White House.

Hell, Trump is learning that lesson right now in a very painful fashion.

To get shit done, you have to have a Congress and a Court and state governments willing to at least listen, hopefully cooperate, be willing to compromise, participate in active governing, and who will hopefully not try to fight you at every turn out of pure cussedness.

So, again, you have to win over the the states (and you thought I’d forgotten about (B) up above).

You can't keep ignoring those people in the middle of the country. Our federal government is designed – specifically designed – so that we are not subject to a tyranny of the majority. That means California doesn't get to push around Idaho either in elections or in federal government. That's why we have an electoral college and a senate and we are a republic instead of a democracy.

You've had eight years to get this lesson: It's not enough to win the White House.

If you want to get shit done, you have win the states. YOU HAVE TO WIN CONGRESS.

You've just seen this in action.

Trump just got handed his own ass by his own party.

Republicans voted 52 times to repeal Obamacare when Obama was in the White House and they didn't have a chance of it passing.

But when everything was in their favor, when they couldn't possibly fail, they failed.

Why?

Because the sons of bitches are so habituated to obstruction, they obstructed their own agenda.

They have broken government.

If they can’t make government work when they control the entire government, they have broken government. Quod erat demonstrandum.

And if government is broken, the country is broken.

So, it's not enough to win the White House and it's about more than winning elections.

It's about getting shit done.

It's about a functioning government.

It's about a functioning country.

It's about civilization.

Listen to me: Fanatics tear down civilization, always. It doesn’t matter if those fanatics are left or right, liberal or conservative, fanatics destroy civilization every time. Fanatics thrive on chaos and disorder and war and destruction. They revel in it. Fanatics are the howling barbarians at the gate.

Fanaticism is the enemy of civilization.

Fanatics be they political, religious, ideological, or whatever their particular bent, you can't reason with them, you can't compromise, you can't negotiate.

But if you can't find common ground with those who can be reasoned with then you end up with a nonfunctional government, which in turn means you get a nonfunctional country.

Which means civilization shortly begins to fall apart.

When government is nonfunctional – and thus the country, society, civilization – that, that right there, is when it happens.

That’s when the fanatics seize control.

That’s how you get communism, or fascism, or a feudal oligarchy, or an emperor.

That's how it happens. Every time.

The only thing – the only thing – that keeps fanaticism in check is a functioning, stable government supported by a functioning stable society.

So, how do you compromise with the fanatics who simply refuse to see reason?

How do you compromise with those who believe every loony conspiracy theory?

How do you compromise with people who just don't care if Trump lies to their faces because they like the idea of chaos and disorder and riot?

How?

YOU DON'T.

You can’t. Obviously. But we had better find a way to meet the reasonable people somewhere in the middle. We had damned well better find a way to offer those people something better than Donald Trump or whoever comes after him.

And that's why Goal #3 is the most important one of all.

 

3. ADVANCE OR DIE

For a nation, for civilization itself, to flourish, it must go forward.

Winning the White House isn’t enough.

Winning Congress isn’t enough.

Winning the states isn’t enough.

Winning isn’t enough.

Civilization has to evolve.

Our country and our society must advance.

We can't keep going back and forth, swinging between liberals and conservatives. We can't keep going over the same ground. For civilization to advance it must build on its successes and learn from its failures. We can’t keep fighting the same goddamned battles over and over.

Civilizations that don't advance?

They die.

By fire or by stagnation or by fragmentation, they die.

Every time.

Every. Time.

And the only way we go forward from this place we find ourselves at, is if both reasonable liberals and reasonable conservatives can find common ground, can compromise.

 

Which takes us at long, long last to the original question: How?

 

How?

That's the rub, isn't it?

That's what you've been asking me for three months. How?

How do we find common ground?

Well, you start here: You find the people, whatever their politics, who believe civilization is better than the alternative.

If we can agree on that, the rest is just details.

Some of you want me to give you a detailed blueprint. A road map. The Big Answer.

I don't have one.

Because there is no single big answer.

There are just a million small ones.

And we’re going to have to find them together.

But the greatest menace to our civilization today is the conflict between giant organized systems of self-righteousness—each system only too delighted to find that the other is wicked—each only too glad that the sins give it the pretext for still deeper hatred and animosity.
- Herbert Butterfield, Christianity, Diplomacy and War

No Man’s Land

 

Alien: Release … me. 
President Whitmore: I know there is much we can learn from each other, if we can negotiate a truce. We can find a way to co-exist. Can there be a peace between us?
Alien: Peace? No peace…
Whitmore: What is it you want us to do?
Alien: Die… Die…
  -- Independence Day, 20th Century Fox, 1996

 

 

Nuke ‘em.

Let’s nuke the bastards.

It’s the movie’s pivotal scene, right?

President Whitmore starts out a liberal peacenik. He’s a nice guy, kind of a young Jimmy Carter type. He’d served in the military once upon a time, flew fighter jets, but as a Fox News commentator says in the background of one scene “Americans thought they were getting a warrior, instead they elected a wimp!”

Then aliens invade the earth.

Whitmore comes face to face with the monster in a bunker under Area 51, the tentacles of its armored suit squeezed about Doctor Okun’s throat, working Okun’s brain telepathically like a broken puppet. We can co-exist, Whitmore pleads, we can have peace. No. No peace, says the alien. Die! Die! And then tries to invade Whitmore’s mind via telepathic assault.  The soldiers in the room shoot the alien monster down in a spray of bullets and as it lays dying on the floor, Whitmore turns to the generals and says,

I saw its thoughts. I saw what they're planning to do. They're like locusts. They're moving from planet to planet, their whole civilization. After they've consumed every natural resource they move on. And we're next. Nuke 'em. Let's nuke the bastards.

Let’s nuke the bastards.

No compromise. No way to co-exist. No peace between us. Die. Die.

That’s a great scene, isn’t it? I love that scene.

What brings this up?

That’s where we’re at, right?

Well, isn’t it?

That’s what you’re telling me. We see what they’re planning to do. They’re like locusts. They’re moving across the country now, consuming every natural resource, and we’re next. No peace. No compromise. Let’s nuke the bastards.

Sure, that’s it.

I’ve written two essays since the election, Bug Hunt and Red Sea, in which I suggested liberals and progressives are going to have to start compromising with conservatives.

I said Democrats are going to have to win over at least some of those red areas in the middle of the country.

 

 

I mean, it seems like it should be easy.  

Or if not easy, at least not an insurmountable task.

Look at all that red.

Look at it.

Red is Republican. Blue is Democrat. But the people who live there are conservative – even the liberals in those areas are comparatively conservative. The people in charge of those counties are conservatives. The voters in those counties send conservative senators and representatives to their conservative state congresses.  Those conservative state governments in turn appoint the conservative electors who select the president. And that president now has a willing Congress of his own, made up in the majority of … conservatives.

But here’s the thing: A lot of those conservatives really hate what’s happened to modern conservatism.

They do.

They’re no fans of the de facto conservative party, i.e. the GOP, Republicans.

And yet – and yet – many of them voted for the people who appointed the electors who selected Donald Trump and even though they can’t stand the guy, they voted for him because they’d much rather have him than a Democrat.

They would rather have a guy that they can’t stand, than a Democrat.

Think about that. They would rather have Trump than a “liberal.”

Why?

Well that is the question, isn’t it?

As I noted in both Bug Hunt and in Red Sea, they’re afraid.

Now I’m sure I’ll get angry denials. We’re not afraid! The messages will say.

But they are. 

Sure they are.

We’re all afraid of something. There’s no shame in admitting that. Liberals, progressives, the Left, they have their own exhaustive list of things they’re afraid of, things they fear will come from this administration.

But we’re talking about those red areas in the middle of the country and there? There, as I noted in the previous essay, conservatives are afraid transgender people will assault their daughters in public restrooms.

Yes, they are. That’s exactly what they’re afraid of, don’t take my word for it, go read any newspaper in North Carolina and see for yourself.

They don’t know any transgender people. They don’t understand transgender. Hell, to be perfectly candid, it’s hard for me to understand because I’ve always been comfortable in my own skin. But I’m at least trying to understand. They aren’t. They don’t want to. They look at Caitlyn Jenner and they see a creepy dude in a skirt. A tranny from Pornhub. It’s the joke from their childhood, Flip Wilson as Geraldine. They think transgender is a hairy-knuckled pedophile in a dress, some creeper who wants to sneak into the girls bathroom and molest their daughters.

And they think liberals would rather side with, hell enable, a sexual predator than protect their kids.

Now, that’s not what transgender is. You know it and I know it, but Democrats haven’t done a damned thing to dissuade conservatives of their fear.

 

They’re afraid gay people want to get married in their churches.

They mostly don’t give a damn if gay people get married, or at least they’ve resigned themselves to same sex marriage. But they’re afraid the next step is the Big Gay Agenda being forced into their churches, just like their restrooms and locker rooms. They’re honestly afraid that a liberal in power will force their religion to not only accept LGBT people, but make the church actively promote “The Gay Lifestyle” (whatever the hell that is) from the pulpit.

And Democrats haven’t done a damned thing to dissuade them of this idea.

They’re afraid foreigners with strange accents and religions and ideas will come to take over their towns.

Now, sure, this isn’t anything new. Every settled culture is afraid it will be replaced. And no, no, the people who still speak with a Dutch accent in Western Michigan or a Norwegian one in Minnesota, the people down at the local small town pizza parlor, or the folks cheering on the local St. Paddy’s Day parade, or enjoying a meal in San Francisco’s Chinatown or Chicago’s  Little Italy or grabbing lunch from a taco truck, no, no they don’t see the irony. So, yes, the same people who enjoy a good falafel or some shawarma from their local kebob shop, or think nothing of hopping into a cab driven by a guy from Pakistan, or buy a sixer of Bud Light from some brown skinned Muslim down at the local minimart, can still be terrified that those people are somehow stealing their culture.

(note: that last example is from personal experience. I stopped in a very rural liquor store. I couldn’t find what I wanted. So I asked the brown-skinned Middle Eastern looking woman behind the counter. Her English was passible but not extensive so she called her husband from the back. He’d never heard of the brand I was looking for either. So they had me spell it out. They carefully wrote it down and asked detailed questions since, they explained, as Muslims neither of them could consume alcohol themselves and thus had no direct experience. And they kindly promised to carry the brand should I happen by again).

Despite the fact that we are a nation of immigrants or maybe because of it and therefore know how mass immigration can change a culture, many Americans are terrified of how immigrants will impact our way of life – even though ironically the things many of us enjoy most about our culture are those very traditions imported from elsewhere via our immigrant forbearers.

For many, the words “immigrant” and “refugee” and “illegal alien” and “criminal” are all interchangeable.

And because of that, they’re afraid illegal aliens who slipped into America across unprotected borders will come to take their jobs. They’re afraid terrorists who slipped unvetted into America disguised as refugees will murder them in their places of worship or their shopping malls or their businesses. They’re afraid gangs of criminals, foreigners who have no loyalty to America and no desire to assimilated into our culture, will come from the cities to kick in their doors.

And Democrats haven’t done a damned thing to dissuade people of this fear.

They’re afraid liberal teachers are going to turn their children against them and away from their heritage.

In truth, this is something all parents fear to some degree.

But many conservatives are afraid liberal teachers are brainwashing their kids into hating America, into hating white people, into hating “our” history and religion and culture. 

Many of these people have been tricked into believing any criticism, any unblinking look at our mistakes, anything but unquestioning loyalty, is embarrassing and unpatriotic and treasonous.  Worse, a foundation of critical thought often leads children to question the world around them, to challenge sacred beliefs, and seek deeper truths in areas many adults – many Americans – would just as soon remain out of sight and out of mind. It’s damned hard to talk honestly about Manifest Destiny or slavery or WWII internment camps or previous waves of immigration without pain, without guilt, without uncomfortable truths.

When a kid asks a parent why we were attacked on September 11th, 2001, the answer is simple: because the terrorists hate us for our Freedom, that’s why.

Because they hate us for our freedom.

That’s a kid’s answer. That’s an America Oorah! answer. Simple. Easy to understand. They hate us because they ain’t us.

But when a kid asks a teacher, well, the answer is anything but simple and easy.

When a kid asks a teacher why the US was attacked by Muslims on 9-11, the answer is complicated and involves a hundred years of failed foreign policy and wars of colonialism and conquest and oil and money and ideology and religions and has nothing whatsoever to do with our supposed freedoms. They hate us because we blew up their country, because we killed their families, because we sided with their enemies, because we came to their land seeking riches and power and we don’t really give a damn about them so long as we get what we need for our civilization.

What?

What’s that?

You disagree? You violently disagree? You’re instantly pissed off? You think what I said about the causal effects of 9-11 make it sound like we somehow deserved it? Like it was our fault?

Heh.

Well, that’s my point exactly. No, not that America – or any country – deserves terrorism and mass murder, but rather your reaction. Your outrage at my phrasing. We can’t look at history dispassionately and without taking it as a personal affront.

Which is why we keep making the same mistakes over and over. But I digress.

Let me use a different example: Nowhere is the difference between how Americans see their history more stark than the issue of slavery.

It seems to me that slavery is the one thing we can all agree on. I mean, it should be, right?

Sure, there were many reasons for slavery. There were a thousand reasons people used to justify slavery as an institution. Certainly slavery helped build this country and shaped its culture and traditions and prejudices and outlooks and civil rights and its impact is still being felt today. But even though slavery was once acceptable – even the norm – it no longer is. We’ve advanced as a civilization and it should be the one thing we can all agree on without reservation. Slavery is evil. Slavery is wrong. Slavery is terrible. We should all be able to agree on that, black, white, left, right, conservative, liberal, Democrat, Republican, all of us should be able to agree that slavery is a horrible blot on our history.

But we don’t.

As soon as it comes up, a certain segment of Americans reflexively become slavery apologists.

Sure, slavery was bad, they rationalize, but hey, look at all the good things that … and I’m left standing there, mouth agape, boggling at anyone who feels somehow that they must rationalize this horrible thing solely because discussing it honestly within the context of our modern enlightenment is just too goddamned painful and embarrassing and guilt inducing.

People of strength and moral character acknowledge unpleasant truths with unflinching determination and use it to make a better future, one where they don’t hate us because they ain’t us.

But many see that unflattering truth as an attempt to paint America as a villain and they just can’t get beyond it, they’re afraid that if our children are taught that unvarnished truth, then they’ll somehow hate their own country, their own culture, their own traditions and people and parents.

And Democrats haven’t done a damned thing to dissuade people of that fear.

They’re afraid the government is coming to take their guns, their freedom, their rights.

And democrats really haven’t done a damned thing at all to dissuade conservatives of those fears. Not really.

Most of all, the people in that sea of red are afraid that their voices are being ignored in Washington.

And Democrat politicians can’t dissuade conservatives of that fear because it’s true.

Their voices are being ignored. 

And so are ours.

That’s not my interpretation, that’s their words, their fears, nearly verbatim. They said so. They continue to say so, in every man-on-the-street interview. At every Trump rally. On Facebook. On Twitter. On Instagram. On Fox & Friends. On Breitbart. In the Wall Street Journal. On the signs in their front yards.

And, yes, some of those conservatives are pretty damned deplorable. They are, no doubt.

But not all.

Not even a majority.

Many, many conservatives are just as disgusted with Trump, with the Republican Party, with the Democratic Party, with the country, as liberals are.

To be honest, many conservatives didn’t really believe Trump would be as horrible as he’s turning out to be.

You remember, right?

Sure, they were the ones telling the rest of us, it’ll be okay, you’ll see, he’ll pivot once the election is over, he’ll be more presidential, he’ll stop the bombast and the tweets and the pussy grabbing. You’ll see.

Of course that was wishful thinking.

Of course that didn’t happen.

Of course it didn’t.

And sure, there’s certainly some schadenfreude to be had here. Ha ha, told you so. Absolutely. But if you can see past that, well, you’ll realize those conservatives are just as disgusted as you are, and maybe even more so since they were the ones who got suckered.

But they continue to vote for Republicans because the alternative, so they believe, is worse.

So it seems to me it should be easy.

Or at least if not easy then not insurmountable.  

It seems Democrats have a historic opportunity, a moment when moderate conservatives could be given a choice other than dogmatic partisanship, if the left can pull together, can reach out, can compromise, and can but convince them that their guns and their bibles will be safe. If Democrats can address those fears up above in an honest manner and put them firmly to rest, then now, this moment right here, is an opportunity to prove that the alternative is better.

 

But here’s the kicker: that’s the easy part.

 

The problem isn’t conservatives.

Or at least not just conservatives.

You see, in those previous two essays and up above the word I used was compromise.

Compromise.

I know there is much we can learn from each other, if we can negotiate a truce. We can find a way to co-exist. Can there be a peace between us?

And the overwhelming response was … no.

No. Not from conservatives. But from liberals.

- I don’t think you know what compromise means!

- When you talk about compromising with the GOP, as it currently exists, what does that mean for you personally? What do you see yourself sacrificing as an individual? You don't have a uterus. You are not black, brown, Muslim, or LGBT […]

- […]What do YOU risk, Wright? Nothing! But nice job mansplaining, condescending prick […]

- […]I agree with you in principle about compromising, but in practice I'm finding this a little difficult. Almost anything we give up is going to hurt somebody. Who do we abandon, or throw to the wolves? It's all too easy to say, well, that issue isn't a big deal, if it doesn't affect us personally. It's a different story when it does.

- I don't expect this comment to get posted, I just want to communicate with you: Wow, Jim, I'm really disappointed with you for the first time. This essay reminds me of a boss who used to yell at us in our weekly team meeting about not showing up at the weekly team meeting. Hel-lo? Why are you yelling at us? *WE'RE* the ones who DO show up. And I, for one, am tired of being lectured about this when I have never missed *ANY* election since the time I was eligible to vote. I'm also tired of the endless apologia for poor white Trump voters. I live in one of the most affluent counties of America, and the McMansions and estates were positively lousy with Trump campaign signs. The only thing these people were frightened of was that some dark-skinned person might possibly get a nickel more than they "deserved" as a dark-skinned person. It is they, more than the types of Trump voters you cite, who are the problem.

- You can’t compromise with evil!

- And what's your's Jim. I like most of what you write, but too often on this topic you just revert to centrist pablum. As others have said; it's not compromise when only one side is compromising.

- I agree with some of this, but I have a problem with the argument that we are all the same. Statistics show the real gung-ho Trump supporters are white men without a college degree. I think education and diversity of experiences plays a huge part in how we are different. I come from a very rural, impoverished part of Michigan, and I know people who get stuck in that cycle of poverty and lack of education. I'm not like them. There's a fundamental difference in world view. Studies show we don't enjoy the same sorts of entertainment, and so on. Perhaps this is my go to cause for problems with almost everything, but it's a lack of education that's at the root of it.

- Okay, so what do we say to those who view politics as theater, fear mongering as amusement, who chuckle when liberals and independents concerns are played out by Mr Trump? What do we say to the farmers who thought Mr Trump wouldn't follow through on his threat to deport en masse the illegals and the unwanted? And further, what do we do when the fear is irrational, that belief has replaced facts, and that dismissive rhetoric is considered a good enough explanation for ridiculous policies? Compromise is a two way street, Mr Wright, and when one party demands the other yield...That's not an invitation for compromise, that's a demand for surrender.

- These people have let Republicans lie to them to their faces for decades. They see the terrible results of right wing policies over long periods of time, especially in the South. And they still vote for the bullshit every single time. There is no reasoning and no compromise with this single minded stupidity.

- Pretending you can get people to turn from their tribalism by being reasonable is what got us in this mess in the first place.

 

- Time to play hardball.

It’s not us. It’s them.

We’re the good ones, they’re the bad ones.

You can’t compromise unless you’re going to lose something too.

If fact, you can’t compromise unless all sides lose equally and all sides  gain equally, we have to keep score.

You can’t compromise with single minded stupidity. You can’t compromise with evil. You can’t compromise if somebody gets hurt. You can’t compromise with people who won’t compromise. You can’t compromise if you’re too centrist – because that’s somehow bad. We can’t compromise with people who got suckered because really fuck those people. We can’t compromise with people who aren’t the same as us.  We can’t compromise because the other side is stupid and evil and unAmerican and horrible hunchbacked stinking black-eyed oily-skinned trolls who eat babies and worship Satan and  who are against everything we believe in Goddamnit! We can’t compromise! No way, no how, and fuck you. No. Hell no. Time to play hardball. No compromise. No peace! No peace! Nuke ‘em! Let’s nuke the bastards! Die! Die!

Right?

And so where does that leave us?

No peace.

No compromise.

No middle ground.

Where does that leave us?

No really, look at that map and tell me, what does that leave?

You won't compromise. You can’t. 

Because you don't believe there are any rational conservatives left to compromise with.

That sea of red, that’s the enemy. You’ve written them off. That’s the evil. You can’t compromise with evil. If they’re afraid, if they voted for Trump, fuck ‘em they deserve no sympathy, no attempt at understanding. No peace. Die.

And so where does that leave you?

Where does it leave you if you regard half the country as The Enemy?

If you don’t believe the system can be salvaged?

If, hell, you don’t believe the system is worth salvaging, it’s rotten and corrupt and can’t be fixed?

If you believe the game is rigged and you don’t believe you can win via legal means?

If you believe the opposition is illegitimate and therefore not worthy of consideration or any respect?

They hate you and you hate them and there can be no peace between you.

You will not compromise.

They will not compromise.

So what's your plan? Where does that leave us? Where do we go next? What options do we have?

Do you march on Washington with your guns and tri-corner hats?

Do you rise up in violent revolution? 

Secession and civil war?

A coup d'état?

Do you find yourself a disgraced scientist and a daredevil pilot to fly a stolen alien craft loaded with nuclear weapons straight into the mothership in a mad suicide mission, one last desperate gamble, and winner take all in the radioactive ruins? And when you succeed, assuming that you do, and you seize power, what then? What comes then? What do you do with the people you can’t compromise with? Purges? Genocide? Ghettos? Reeducation camps? Mass deportation? Imposition of your ideals via the muzzle of a gun? How will your force those conquered people who you cannot compromise with to comply?

How long do you think you can hold it, assuming you are able to seize the reins of power in the first place?

How stable do you think such a country would be? How productive? How innovative? How free?

Or are these more of those unpleasant truths we don’t want to face? 

 

I used the word compromise on purpose.

 

I used it deliberately and with malice aforethought.

I used it knowing what would happen, how you’d react.

I used it because I knew, I knew, that it would provoke a visceral reaction. I used it because it’s as much a trigger for many of you as it is for those you despise. You hear compromise and instantly your teeth are bared and your fists are clenched. No. No compromise. It’s not up to us to compromise, it’s up to them! No. No compromise. No peace. Die!

But, you see, in those paragraphs describing civil war and reeducation camps up above, the partisan you isn’t identified and as such those statements could apply equally well to the other side – and do.

I said I wasn’t asking you to compromise with hate, but with fear.

You’re just playing with semantics, you yelled back. How do you compromise with those who won’t compromise? How?

How? Well, of course, you don’t.

How do you compromise with hate and unreason?

You can’t.

Nowhere did I suggest that any of us should compromise with neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan, with haters and bigots, and gun waving fanatics or dimwitted goons. 

Nowhere did I suggest you should give up your civil rights, your freedom, or your integrity.

But that’s exactly what a number of people thought as soon as they heard the word compromise. Because just like conservatives, liberals hear the word compromise and they’ll be damned if they’ll budge.

Folks, I submit to you that there are far, far more reasonable people, on both sides, standing closer to the middle than to the edges and the only thing which really divides those people one from the other is … fear.

And yes, it’s true that hate cannot be reasoned with.

It can be burned down, shot, bombed from the sky, plowed under, locked up, marginalized until it starves to death, but it can not be reasoned with.

Fear, however, can.

And so perhaps compromise was the wrong word even though it served my purpose.

Regardless of what words I use, we – all of us – must find a way to address that fear. The fear that is tearing our country, our people, our civilization apart.

Not dismiss, not mollify, but address honestly and in good faith no matter how painful and unpleasant.

You know, it’s funny. I came from the Heartland, the Midwest. I spent my life in the ultimate bastion of conservatism, the military. I lived in Alaska, the reddest of the Red States. I live now in the Panhandle of Florida among conservatives. I talk to these people. I eat with these people. I drink with these people. I’m related to these people. Those things up above? Many reasonable conservatives don’t really give a damn about those things. Not really. They want the same things you do, peace, security, safety, good paying jobs, decent schools and decent neighbors, bridges that don’t fall down, clean water, clean air, safe food, affordable healthcare, respect, pride, and it’s likely that we, left and right, have more in common than we don’t.

Look out there. What do you see?

Republican politicians can’t even talk to their own people.

Republican politicians are afraid, terrified, to face their own people in a town hall.

Doesn’t that suggest to you an opportunity?

When I talk to conservatives, the reasonable ones, it seems their ideals and the things that are important to them – really important -- are far closer to that of the Democratic or Independent parties than to the platform of the GOP. But they all say the same thing: I can’t vote for a Democrat. I can’t vote for a liberal.

Because of all those fears, it’s being labelled a liberal they fear the most.

Change that …

… and you change the map.

David Levinson: You really think you can fly that thing?
Captain Steven Hiller: You really think you can do all that bullshit you just said?
-- Independence Day

Yes I do.