The Midterm Elections

Posted on October 27, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, October 27, 2022

The much-anticipated 2022 midterm elections are only twelve days away. It feels surreal. It’s almost as if we never completed the last election cycle. A frightening number of Americans still believe the lie that the 2020 election results were wrong despite overwhelming evidence that that election was cleaner than anyone imagined. Worse, the Trumpers’ mobster-like approach to elections, that lying, posturing, falsifying evidence, and stalling the efforts of legitimate law enforcement and the courts may drive our future politics. Don’t be surprised if every Trump-supported candidate who loses claims victory and screams voter fraud.

That scenario might make a great plot for movie, but it spells serious problems for our nation’s future. Just in the past week, we’ve seen dangerous warnings of what might result. Yesterday, for example, Israeli President Isaac Herzog was invited by Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to address a joint session of Congress next year on the 75th anniversary of Israel’s birth. But even such an obvious display of unity among close allies had to be amended to assure Herzog that if the Republicans win control of the Congress next month, the invitation would still stand, because Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell support it.

Similarly, two of the most extreme caucuses in Congress made pubic pronouncements in advance of the election concerning funding for our support of Ukraine. Both the Bernie Sanders Progressives and Kevin McCarthy’s posse of Trump lapdogs issued veiled threats that they might oppose continued aid to repel Russia’s invasion. The statements were entirely political, meant to appeal to the groups’ respective bases when they cast their votes. But both were issued without regard for their international, diplomatic, and security implications.

Both statements were immediately walked back, but the damage had been done. No matter how extremists on both ends of the spectrum water down their threats to the Biden administration, Vladimir Putin heard them, and it was sweet music to his ears. If support for Ukraine were shaky in the American Congress, how long would NATO’s consensus to oppose his war survive? President Biden performed what future historians might regard as a miracle when he restored Europe’s confidence in America as the leader of the democratic world, after the Trump administration made a show of alienating our allies and lauding the dictators who govern our most dangerous adversaries. But if the world sees that our entire philosophy of diplomacy and world politics can be completely reversed every two years, how can countries that depend on mutual aid treaties with the United States rely on us in the future?

A more pertinent question might be how our country can survive, much less prosper under those conditions. The Trump-dominated wing of the Republican Party has perverted the notion of democracy. Instead of a government by and for the people, we have somehow found ourselves being governed by an extremist minority willing to pander to any group, no matter how craven if it assures their votes. That minority was able to leverage its power to stack the Supreme Court with people who call themselves Originalists and states’ rights advocates, labels that have become code for giving a wink and a nod to racists and xenophobes, to assuring the proliferation of military assault weapons, to preserving the wealth of our richest individuals, and enabling a strangely distorted view of Christian extremism that rivals the policies of radical extremist Islamic regimes like those in Iran and Afghanistan.

The point is that we may be on the cusp of what history one day views as the collapse of the American dream. It may not feel that way if you live in a nice house and drive an expensive car, but (pardon the cliché) don’t let the trees blind you from the fact that the forest is changing. It took the Roman Empire centuries to die, though from the context of history, its demise was assured long before that. Did Roman Senators in 100 A. D. realize their civilization was collapsing around them?

The difference today is that we the people have the power to right the ship if we use it properly. Suppose we put aside our petty resentments and remember that most of the good things in our lives only exist because we grew up in the United States and remember that preserving our democracy and our Constitution is the best legacy we can leave future generations. If we re-assess who deserves our loyalty, it’ll be pretty clear who really cares about the future of our country and who is involved in a life-and-death struggle for power and wealth. Unlike the Romans, we have the power to assure that the right people win.

I voted today. Will you?

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A Warning About the Midterm Elections From the UK

Posted on October 20, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, October 20, 2022

Analogies can be misleading, and there are more differences than similarities in the political crises facing the United Kingdom and the United States, but there’s a warning for Americans in the shockingly rapid demise of UK Prime Minister Liz Truss. COVID, war in Ukraine, climate change, supply chain problems, and OPEC placing its interests ahead of the industrial world’s have created serious challenges for the world’s largest economies.

Since the massive global shift toward progressive government in the 1960s and 70s, there has been a predictable trend back toward fiscal conservatism and the political clout of the wealthy. In the United States, the driving force was Ronald Reagan’s push for smaller government, lower taxes, and the Taxpayer Protection Pledge created by Conservative activist Grover Norquist. The Pledge, which was signed by 95% of Republicans running for office, is a promise to oppose all tax increases and expansions of progressive programs. It is an essential component of supply side economics and its corollary trickle-down theory, which asserts that the more the upper classes are enriched the more money will trickle down to social and education programs.

Over the last forty years, supply side economics, which George H. W. Bush compared to voodoo, never delivered what it promised, except for the part about making the extremely wealthy wealthier and expanding the earnings gap between upper, middle, and lower classes. After Barrack Obama mobilized progressive voters who cared about saving social programs and opposed our war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the extreme right realized it needed drastic action to maintain its power and influence. Thus evolved Roger Ailes and Fox News, who hand-picked Donald Trump to unite xenophobes, racists, misogynysts, and anyone who could be convinced that their own failures were the result of “socialist” policies.

To offset the “browning of America,” which would soon have made white Americans a voting minority, Trump’s movement supported efforts by Republicans to restrict non-white voting and gerrymander the hell out of local legislative and Congressional districts. Most ominous, Trump’s half of the Republican party promulgated lies about non-existent election fraud and supported violent insurrection as means of staying in power. Support for both is the price of Trump’s endorsement.

At the heart of all this is the ongoing fight to control wealth and power. But politicians are playing a zero-sum game – there’s only a finite amount of wealth and power, so the wealthier the people at the top become, the less there is for the other 99%. Liz Truss learned the hard way that you can only squeeze so many golden eggs out of that poor goose before you kill her. Truss is a hard-right Conservative who completely bought in to supply side economics.

In six weeks as Prime Minister, she attempted to enact her “mini budget,” which would have lowered taxes to an unsustainable level based on Britain’s declining GNP. Its wrongheaded approach to Brexit and the EU had already brought the UK to the brink of economic chaos. When you’ve reached the tipping point, it only takes a small nudge to cause everything to crash and burn; that’s what happened to Truss’s government. The pound crashed, and the International Monetary Fund sounded alarm bells. It took only days for a consensus among everyone except Truss’s closest allies that her policies would result in disaster for the UK.

How is that related to our midterm elections? Consider the Republican legislative blueprint written by Florida Senator Rick Scott. Scott pledged that if voters return control of the Senate to Republicans, they will make the Trump tax cuts, which cost our economy more than $2 trillion, permanent, while sunsetting all laws that enable programs most Americans depend on: health care, unemployment protection, public education, and financial support for the poor, blind, and disabled. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy pledged to reduce or end support for Ukraine, while Republicans in general, oppose funding for renewable energy resources and would reduce immigration to mostly white Europeans.

Those issues are what brought our strongest ally to its knees. The UK is not the force it once was, but if its future could be severely threatened by irresponsible politics, what does that say about ours? If anyone suggested, five years ago, that the UK would have five governments fall in six years, would you have believed it? Trump has brought the United States to an equally dangerous pass. Our democracy is tottering the edge of an abyss. Our best hope for the future lies with the voters.

A close friend, a career military veteran who was a registered Republican for more than fifty years, told me his only priority filling out his 2022 ballot was protesting Trump’s takeover of his party. He voted for every Democrat on the ballot, without even reading their names.

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The Pitfalls and Dangers of Narcissism

Posted on October 14, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, October 14, 2022

Narcissists tend to be arrogant, overconfident, impetuous, and impulsive. They are incapable of empathy or accepting defeat. They’re often good at reacting and adapting to changing circumstances, but their tendency to ignore information they don’t like and surround themselves with people who tell them what they want to hear can make bad situations worse, even catastrophic for them and everyone around them.

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are two such men who have the potential to destroy everything around them. Joe Biden is not, and that’s fortunate for the rest of us. Biden has the unhappy responsibility to protect the world from both of them. Amid his disappointing approval ratings, (he’s at about 45% now,) concerns about his age, (he’ll turn 80 in five weeks,) and constant threats from the far right, I’d ask where the world would be today if Biden hadn’t been there to re-unite NATO and repair the rifts with our traditional allies that he inherited from Trump. Pundits talk about how Putin badly miscalculated when he invaded Ukraine. What they don’t say explicitly is that he seriously underestimated Biden’s leadership.

Back in February and March, NATO countries were divided over how much they were willing to defend Ukraine. Most notable was Germany, which was more heavily dependent on Russian oil and natural gas than any other country as well as being the most influential NATO member on the European continent. When the war started, Germany resisted making a total commitment to defending Ukraine – the cost to its people might have been too high to bear. But Biden forced our allies to confront publicly what everyone already knew, privately.

No one knows better than Germany that the world cannot survive another Neville Chamberlain, especially when Biden convinced them that cutting off the income Russia needed to finance its war, while accelerating Europe’s conversion to renewable energy was their best path forward. Future historians will not fault NATO’s determination to stand firm against Putin’s bullying, regardless of the risk of the war expanding beyond control. That possibility exists only because of Putin’s recklessness and his ability to suppress his opposition, while failing to note that his traditional armed forces had degenerated into a substandard fighting force. Ironically, his battlefield losses are the most dangerous thing that could have happened, because Putin doesn’t know how to lose, and he owns the world’s largest nuclear weapons arsenal.

Donald Trump doesn’t know how to lose, either. He demonstrated to everyone but the most ignorant, bigoted, violent elements of his base that he has no more respect for the rule of law or the conventions that have kept us from destroying ourselves than Putin. Anyone watching the January 6th committee hearings with a shred of objectivity can see that Trump was willing to destroy our democracy and our Constitution to enrich and empower himself, and he still is. The groups he calls on to defend him, like The Proud Boys and The Oath Keepers, are the political equivalent of urban street gangs and mafia thugs. These people couldn’t care less about America or the vast majority of its people. They subscribe only to their own inbred values, a sick mixture of twisted honor and loyalty, and a horribly distorted version of Christianity.

Are these the people we want controlling our country or serving as a private army to a self-serving narcissist? The consequences of failing to stand up to them, if not crush them entirely may be less serious that a nuclear war, but they are equally catastrophic to the future of our republic, which leads me to my second question. Where would we be today, weeks away from a national election, if Joe Biden hadn’t successfully kept his party united, rather than let it fall into civil war the way the Republicans did? Lies and right-wing hype aside, where would we be if our unemployment rate was still close to ten percent, if millions had been left destitute and homeless by COVID? Where would we be if a far-seeing president hadn’t had the vision and fortitude to pass legislation to rebuild our infrastructure and take actions that would finally achieve complete energy independence?

The battles to put down both Putin and Trump are still raging. We don’t know how they will turn out, but two things are clear. When a narcissistic leader continually relies on personal loyalty as the only qualification for joining his team, it will ultimately come back to haunt him. Neither Putin’s traditional armed forces nor Trump’s vengeful army of haters possess the substance required for victory, but they do possess the ability to disrupt and destroy everything they touch unless someone stops them. One could argue that the self-serving narcissism of Trump and Putin constitute the most serious threats the world currently faces.

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The Reality of a Nuclear World Order

Posted on October 10, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, October 10, 2022

The week after next is Cuban Missile Crisis Week. It will mark sixty years during which the world managed to avoid self-destruction with nuclear weapons. I have vivid memories of the final day of the original crisis, standing in a line with a thousand other students on the Columbia University campus listening to transistor radios to find out if we would survive until the next day. Columbia is in Manhattan in the middle of New York City, which was essentially prime nuclear target number one in 1962.

We walked away from that horrific day believing responsible world leaders had saved us from Armageddon. With the perspective of time, I believe the person who saved the world that day was Soviet (Russian) Premier Nikita Khrushchev. Thus, we convinced ourselves that no matter what occurred in the world, our leaders would always manage to avoid the horror of a nuclear war in which there would be no victors and very few survivors.

The world is less safe today than sixty years ago. The rise of autocrats like Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, and the Ayatollahs who run Iran, combined with the ever-present possibility that terrorists will get their hands on nuclear weapons has the world in a more precarious spot than most of us like to believe. None of these people believe in the rule of law. They behave amorally and respect nothing but strength and power.

We thought Khrushchev was a crazy Russian leader who was capable of any terrible act we could imagine. Fortunately, Khrushchev turned out to be rational and responsible – and a very good actor. Everyone my age remembers him taking off his shoe at the UN General Assembly and pounding it on the table as he addressed his peers.

Having survived 1962, the next three decades were a terrifying time when we let ourselves think about it. Then, the nuclear arms reduction treaties and a noticeable lack of nuclear saber rattling lulled the world into complacency – nuclear weapons were a deterrent that would prevent their use. But we see, today, that our complacency is hypocrisy, a delusion based on the assumption that we’ve learned to live safely with the capability of destroying ourselves.

Whether or not Vladimir Putin is crazy, he is not stupid, and he knows history. Before we rush to claim the moral high ground, consider this. Several years ago, when one of my sons asserted that no country would ever nuke another, I replied that one country already had. He was shocked, demanding to know which one, and I reminded him about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It wasn’t that he hadn’t known about them; like the rest of us, he’d succumbed to the self-serving delusion that that was somehow different. Last week, Putin reminded the world that the United States is the only nation that has ever used a nuclear weapon in warfare.

Putin has proved, during the twenty plus years he has ruled Russia, that he too is a great actor, but that doesn’t mean he’s bluffing when he threatens to escalate the conflict in Ukraine. That may be more frightening than confronting Khrushchev was. In 1962, the Russians wanted to install nuclear missiles within 100 miles of Florida, and the Kennedy Administration drew a line in the sand. Nuclear ultimata are dangerous. We probably got away with that one because all Khrushchev lost in backing down was a potential strategic advantage that never actually existed.

There’s a lot more at stake today, at least in the mind of Vladimir Putin, who seems to believe that NATO and the United States are plotting to destroy Russia. While there’s no doubt that such contingencies exist, destroying Russia is clearly not on NATO’s agenda. NATO is and always will be a defensive alliance, formed to protect against Soviet expansionism. Putin knows that, so all his talk about existential threats to his homeland justifying the possible use of nuclear weapons is…what?

Is Putin dangerously paranoid? Are all of his advisors? Or is Putin as good an actor as Nikita Khrushchev was? “Experts” analyze this subject on every media platform. If you listen long enough, you’ll realize they don’t know much more than you and I. We’ll only know if Putin is bluffing when we reach his end game. The threat Putin poses to Europe is more real and tangible than Khrushchev’s attempt to put missiles in Cuba was to us. Cuba was largely symbolic, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, especially today’s missile attacks on Ukrainian cities which were nothing more than terrorism, represents a threat that cannot be tolerated.

Is Putin crazy enough to blow up the world? Before you answer, consider that Donald Trump was willing to undermine our Constitution and destroy the foundations of our democracy to remain in office.

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Distinguishing Good From Evil

Posted on October 5, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, October 5, 2022

It’s often said that, like sausage making, the more you scrutinize politics and diplomacy, the worse they look and smell. A main reason I object to mixing religious and secular education is that religion plants the false notion in children’s minds that good and evil exist as distinct and easily identifiable characteristics in each of us. Before the internet, it was easy for propaganda-savvy governments and politicians to idealize good and evil so they were portrayed as good.

During World War 2 and Korea, Americans believed we were the good guys. Despite having committed genocide against the native Americans who preceded us and enslaving millions of kidnapped Africans, then continuing to deny non-white Americans’ constitutional rights, we grew up believing America was the greatest country in the world, the greatest that ever existed. That might be true if you define a virtuous person as the least evil one.

About politics and diplomacy, it’s also said that the only thing worse than either would be if neither existed, as they are the only alternatives humans have found to constant conflict and chaos. In a desperately divided nation, each faction believes it has good and righteousness on its side. In a desperately divided world each alliance feels the same way.

If our divisive politics in recent decades wasn’t bad enough, there’s a civil war within the Republican Party. Last week, Donald Trump viciously attacked Mitch McConnell and threw a racial slur at his “China-loving” wife, Elaine Chao. Many saw Trump’s remarks as an invitation to his more virulent supporters to do violence to the Kentucky Senator, and the china-loving remark was typical Trump slander. Chao may be corrupt, but her wealth comes from her family businesses in Taiwan – she’s no fan of China. And as 2024 approaches, after supporting Ron DeSantis’ run for Governor of Florida, and receiving constant support from DeSantis since he entered politics, Trump is now poised to direct his hate and vitriol against the Florida Governor because early preference polls for president show DeSantis leading Trump in the primaries.

The Democrats waged a civil war of their own which resulted in sixteen months of legislative stalemate after the 2021 COVID stimulus bill passed. That they resolved their differences sufficiently to have an unusually productive Congressional term doesn’t suggest that their internal differences are any less severe than the Republicans’. Their success in this Congress stems from the non-self-aggrandizing leadership of President Joe Biden, who believes it’s better to unite a party than for one faction to beat another into submission.

Diplomatically, America has been on the wrong side far too often. Vietnam was a disaster, not only because we lost, but because it’s not clear we were on the right side. We inherited the mess left by the French, not because they were the good guys, but because they were allies, and the decades since we surrendered showed that Ho Chi Minh was not the evil enemy he was portrayed to be. Were we on the right side in the Iran-Iraq conflict? Were we right to spend twenty years fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan instead of confronting the Saudis for their role in the nine-eleven attack?

We’re more involved every day in the war in Ukraine. I’m all in supporting Ukraine, no matter what it takes. But does that mean good resides in Ukraine while only evil drives Russia? Ukraine has our sympathy and support because almost all of the 45 million Ukrainian people are innocent victims in this war.

NATO loves calling Russia’s invasion “unprovoked,” but is that true? When Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, Russia depended on its agriculture and its ports in Crimea and the Odessa region. Ever since the USSR’s demise, Russia has been clear that it fears incursions by NATO on its western borders. We may hate Vladimir Putin and condemn the actions he takes, but most of America felt that way about Trump during his administration. We’re not supporting Ukraine because they’re the good guys, but because it is in the strategic interest of the entire planet to stop aggression by a nuclear power before it leads to total destruction.

Ukraine, as a nation has hardly been a model of democracy and good government. I watched all fifty-plus episodes of Servant of the People, the prophetic Netflix parody starring Volodymyr Zelensky when he was Ukraine’s most popular comedic actor. Made after Russia annexed Crimea, it shows us a Ukrainian-eyed view of the country in 2015-2017. Zelensky, playing the role of president, constantly fights greedy oligarchs and a government owned, lock, stock, and barrel by wealthy supporters. It’s difficult to distinguish that view of Ukraine from our image of Russia, they’re so similar. And today the New York Times is reporting that the car bomb in Moscow that killed the daughter of a Russian oligarch was the result of a Ukrainian plot.

No one’s hands are clean, whether it’s politics or diplomacy. We support Ukraine because supporting them is a better idea than allowing Putin to run rampant throughout Europe. When you look at the people supporting your candidates in the coming elections, you’ll see similar dynamics at work. They all have huge egos and a lust for power, but some are a lot more evil than others.

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The Challenges We Face

Posted on September 30, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, September 30, 2022

The phrase, “When it rains, it pours,” is usually a reference to problems piling on top of each other. Not to strain the metaphor too much, depending on what those problems are, they can lead to a perfect storm of loss and devastation. The United States and the rest of the world appear to be facing that possibility now. Wherever you look – world affairs, the changing climate, the global economy, or politics – the signs are potentially ominous.

The most immediate concern is Vladimir Putin’s escalation of his war in Ukraine. It’s the perfect subject for all those highly paid talking heads. If it turns out Putin was bluffing, they’ll all note that somewhere in their scholarly analyses of possibilities was a warning that he might be. And if he isn’t, we may all be too irradiated to care. One of the primary rules of game theory is that when the consequences of a negative outcome are catastrophic, the likelihood of that outcome is virtually irrelevant – it must be avoided at all costs.

The worst-case outcome from climate change is less severe than a nuclear war, but it’s likelihood is higher. An objective observer might conclude that with a longer planning horizon and the tools to mitigate the worst outcomes at our disposal, governments at all levels, everywhere should be mobilizing to protect our future, but like many rational conclusions, that one has been a victim of partisan politics and greedy self-interests until now. There’s an impressive body of evidence that storms like Hurricane Ian, that caused billions of dollars and cost lives all over Florida, and the unprecedented heat waves of last summer can be laid directly at the feet of climate change. Will that change anyone’s mind?

We see the same counterproductive forces at work when we examine local, domestic, and world economies. Every economy was dealt a severe blow by the COVID pandemic, which also showed us the folly of moving most of our manufacturing off shore to countries where labor and materials are cheaper. The energy crunch caused by Putin’s extortion of Russia’s oil and natural gas customers, combined with supply chain problems and climate-induced crop failures spiked inflation and have most economists seriously worried about the future. Less than a month into its new government’s tenure, the UK’s economy is teetering on the edge. These problems are visible and solvable if we set our minds to them without distractions.

Finally, we must deal with our political crises, which in some ways are the polar opposite of our more immediate crises. Political challenges are a little like icebergs. We only see them from the angles the spin doctors want us to, with their most dangerous implications hidden beneath the surface. Given all the other problems we face, political leaders have a choice. They can either work together for the common good to avoid disaster, or they can take advantage of desperate circumstances to work their own priorities.

While extremists among the Democrats managed to negotiate their differences and eke out a few legislative victories that will benefit millions of Americans, the civil war within the Republican Party rages on with no end in sight. Thus, we have the spectacle of Mitch McConnell looking like a reasonable establishment conservative while the Trumpers would rather tear everything down than not get their way. The latest example of this is the upcoming annual fight over raising the federal debt ceiling.

Hate him or love him, McConnell at least understands that shutting down the government over providing funding to implement laws that have already been passed and signed would be tantamount to a ship captain tossing his crew overboard in stormy seas without life preservers. McConnell made sure the debt ceiling deadlline was delayed until after the midterm elections, but the Trumpers couldn’t care less as long as they are able to scuttle everything the Biden administration has accomplished.

The past thirty-two months have been difficult. Millions lost their lives or their health and vitality. Many millions more lost jobs or family members. People are understandably weary, but that’s no excuse to disengage from reality. If we don’t remain involved, we will lose control of our future. We could wake up one day and realize that all the freedoms we thought we had are gone. We could find ourselves slipping into a serious economic decline which might also be the tipping point for failing to solve our other problems.

When money gets tight, who’s going to be willing to keep spending billions helping Ukraine or building wind farms that can assure our future energy independence without destroying our planet? Who will have the time and resources to protect us from those who would undermine our Constitution for their own profit? When the perfect storm materializes, all our separate problems coalesce into a single massive threat with tentacles that can reach into every part of our lives.

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Autocrats, Real and Imagined

Posted on September 22, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, September 22, 2022

The two immediate crises faced by everyone on Earth stem from the same source – the trend toward autocrats and the cults that support them. Our future may hinge on the actions of two men, one a vicious dictator, the other a worshipful wannabe, both of whom relentlessly pursue their agendas with no regard for the rest of us.

Vladimir Putin dreams of restoring the empire that was the Soviet Union. Like centuries of Russian leaders before him, he is driven by the paranoid view that the rest of the world wants to destroy his country. Donald Trump is a narcissistic sociopath who would spend his last breath attempting to achieve the kind of power he imagines Putin has. Neither man possesses a shred of morality or humanity. Empathy and benevolence do not exist in their belief systems except as tools for manipulating people.

As a result, the world finds itself at the mercy of two men who would stop at nothing to realize their ambitions, and each is supported by a cult of true believers. Each clings to power by spreading lies and ruthlessly attacking his enemies, whom he defines as everyone who fails to bend a need in fealty. Each possesses the mentality of a thug and surrounds himself with yes people who support his delusionary view of the world. And they’re each desperate to either remain in or retake control of the world’s largest storehouses of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.

Putin wants the world to believe he would freeze Europe during the coming winter and resort to nuclear weapons in his quest to control and annex Ukraine. Donald Trump has demonstrated that he would undermine the principles on which our nation was founded and destroy democracy to achieve his ends. The United States and Russia, and by extension, the rest of the civilized world, are being driven to the brink of catastrophe.

That Putin explicitly said, “This is not a bluff,” yesterday, shows how desperate he is. That Trump took the Fifth over 400 times in his court appearances leading up to the $250 million lawsuit filed by the New York Attorney General against him, his family, and his businesses sends the same message. Trump and Putin are on the ropes, with their backs against the wall, and they’re as dangerous as cornered rats, except that these rats might have the resources to take the rest of us down with them.

There are a couple of simple truths that we ignore at our peril. Leaders like Putin and Trump, unprincipled bullies with the mentalities of gangsters, can only be stopped by strength. Our grandparents lived through the nightmare of what happens when we attempt to compromise or reason with these thugs, and at least until now, we and our European allies have realized that standing united against aggression is more important than our individual needs and differences.

The other truth is that a republic like ours, imperfect as it is, has been the most benevolent form of government the world has ever known, but it’s still an experiment. No democratic society has ever survived longer than a couple of centuries, and if we expect ours to, we must defend it against those who would bring it down with the same unrelenting determination that we resist Russia’s attempt to rebuild its empire by force.

To get through this, we must have our eyes open to reality. Our communications media are all dominated by wealthy, powerful people out for their own interests, not ours. We cannot let the extremists who control them dominate our thoughts and opinions. It’s on us to get this right, because there are no superheroes waiting to come to our rescue.

The biggest problem may be that history is not on our side. Power and wealth invariably corrupt people, and human nature includes a nasty perversity that too often leads to death and destruction. Yet, I remained optimistic about the future regardless of having lived through the Cold War, Vietnam, nine-eleven, Iraq, and Afghanistan. I’ve looked at Iran, North Korea, Russia, and the threats they represent and always assumed things would work out in the end.

Why? Because I bought into the American dream and the propaganda that sustained it. I grew up believing in the fantasy of our destiny, that we’re the good guys and the good guys always win, except that they don’t. When my resolve weakens, I pull out my copy of Walter M. Miller’s classic 1959 novel, A Canticle For Leibowitz, which I first read just before the Cuban Missile Crisis. Its brilliantly delivered message is that human beings, whenever they achieve the ability for self-destruction will inevitably tear down everything they have built because we cannot control our baser urges.

Miller makes his point convincingly enough to restore my resolve. When the forces of evil and dissolution rise up, we have no choice but to stand up to them with everything we possess. Joe Biden understands that. If we survive the next few years, history will recognize him as the right leader at the right time, one who put basic humanity and decency ahead of greed and power.

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Wind Farms

Posted on September 15, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, September 15, 2022

Of all the issues critical to our future that have been taken hostage by political extremists, climate change may be the most serious, depending on whether you believe the long-term health of our planet or the survival of American democracy is more important. Considering the world our grandchildren will inherit, I’d call it a tie. That makes today’s announcement monumental.

Talk about hypocrisy! Have you ever met a nuclear power advocate who wanted a reactor in his neighborhood, or a law-and-order hard-liner who supported a high-security prison in his town? In 2007, a far-thinking project known as Cape Wind was nearing the end of a six-year battle to build America’s first wind turbine farm off the southern coast of Cape Cod. Engineering studies estimated that it would supply 79% of all the power consumed on Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket. It had been approved by state regulators and awaited only federal approval.

Except that a powerful Senator, Edward Kennedy, happened to live in Hyannisport, from which the 440-foot tall turbines would have been visible. Kennedy, who claimed strong support for environmental causes, thought they were an eye sore, and killed the project, effectively saying, “Not in My Backyard.” Consequently, while offshore wind farms have been sprouting up along coastlines around the world, fifteen years later, the United States has only one small facility near Block Island, Rhode Island.

Projects are currently on the books for larger wind farms off the coasts of Connecticut, New York, (Long Island,) New Jersey, and Maryland, but none have received the necessary approvals to begin construction. That makes the Biden administration’s announcement that it is committing itself to wind turbine farms off the coast of California absolutely epic. It’s not only the right thing to do for our future, but it’s perfectly timed for the midterm election campaigns.

A majority of Americans, and a super-majority of environmental scientists believe reducing carbon emissions, to zero if possible, is the only way to avoid a catastrophe for future generations. Wind turbines produce the greenest energy possible, with virtually no carbon footprint. You might hear idiotic arguments like interrupting the natural flow of wind might confuse migratory birds, but there is no rational opposition to Biden’s plan. Anyone who speaks out against it is undoubtedly motivated by greed or politics.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm says the California projects and those planned for the Oregon and Maine coastlines are capable of generating twice as much electricity as the entire country presently consumes. That’s a huge statement, coming on the heels of the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which included $369 billion to mitigate the effects of climate change, and it keeps one of President Biden’s most important campaign promises. Imagine that! Achieving a political objective while improving the future for billions of people.

This won’t happen overnight, but consider what the future might hold. Meeting America’s electricity needs with wind and hydropower accomplishes many other things as well. Combined with new initiatives to produce electric and hydrogen powered motor vehicles, we will finally achieve energy independence without the need to burn coal, and with far less consumption of oil. We can now envision a future in which oil-rich nations can no longer hold oil production hostage when it suits their needs. Moreover, energy dependence is one of the most serious threats to national security and the stability of the world order.

Vladimir Putin could not have risked invading Ukraine if Europe weren’t dependent on Russian oil and natural gas. Russian natural gas was the single greatest obstacle Biden had to overcome in getting NATO and the EU solidly aligned in the defense of Ukraine. What if, the next time a misguided Russian president sets his sights on his western neighbors, the entire North Sea has been turned into a giant wind farm, imitating Denmark’s example? What if the English Channel was one long line of wind turbines, and it became fashionable to have a wind farm in your backyard along the Spanish, French, and Italian Riviera coastlines?

No one would be able extort diplomatic or military concessions from countries that now import oil and natural gas. We will reduce the amount of gases that trap heat in our atmosphere, the global average temperature will begin to drop, and our remaining ice caps will be secure for the future. Air pollution and acid rain will cease to be threats to our nation’s health, and we’ll be able to see the stars again.

I’m not exaggerating. The Biden wind farm initiative has the potential to change everything about the future.

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Positive Signs

Posted on September 13, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, September 13, 2022

As 2022 began, everything seemed to be trending in the wrong direction. Congress was hopelessly deadlocked. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had re-aligned himself with Donald Trump, tying his future to the former president’s. Democrats were unable to captialize on their razor-thin Senate majority which was stymied by two Senators who would not go along with our current president’s agenda, and Biden appeared mired in quicksand, with a dismal approval rating and a storm of criticism from both the right and left. Pundits predicted a midterm tsunami, a red wave led by Trump-dominated Republicans, while investigations of Trump’s involvement in the January 6th insurrection were being stonewalled by former White House officials and lawyers.

Russia massed troops along its border with Ukraine, and Biden faced his greatest challenge: restoring American leadership of NATO and re-uniting Europe against the threat of Russian aggression. Russia and OPEC had found common interest in limiting oil production to drive up prices. Predictions of recession were rampant, and the Omicron variant of COVID reminded us that the pandemic wasn’t over, it had simply evolved to a new phase. COVID didn’t dominate the news, but so many hospital beds were occupied by COVID patients, there was little room for anyone else.

When it seemed things couldn’t look gloomier, Russia invaded Ukraine, inflation exploded, the Supreme Court reversed Roe v Wade, warning that other rights we consider settled by decades of precedent were in jeopardy, and red states began passing laws threatening the objectivity of our elections that the courts seemed inclined to let stand. Perhaps worst of all, efforts to offset the effects of climate change seemed dead.

In March, however, two miracles unfolded. Joe Biden’s understated leadership and the relationships he had established with our allies as Senator and Vice President paid huge dividends. Even his supporters were startled at his success in creating solidarity among NATO and EU leaders, though we are routinely warned that it might collapse any time. The Ukrainian people showed the same mettle against a massive Russian military that they had eighty years earlier, when Hitler invaded. The success of Ukraine’s armed forces, the massive influx of arms and other essential equipment from NATO countries, and Ukrainian leaders’ ability to work smoothly with U. S. and European intelligence shocked almost everyone, not least, Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Teachers, historians, economists, and politicians tell us the forces that influence our lives are mostly cyclical. It’s easy to lose faith waiting for the pendulum to swing back, but it always does, and it’s doing so now. Gas prices are down thirty percent from their June highs and are lower than when Russia invaded Ukraine, proving that we were victimized more by the oil cartels’ greed than Putin’s blackmail. Special elections, especially in red states, show that voters are inclined to reject the extremism of the Trump-dominated courts, and Trump’s success in forcing his candidates through the primaries may backfire in November, as many of those he supported are clearly not ready for prime time.

In June, the incompetent, dysfunctional Democrats got their act together and managed to do so under the radar, averting a flood of counter-propaganda from the right and enabling Congress to pass landmark legislation. We are repaying veterans (and their families) who suffered grave illness and death due to our policies in Iraq and Afghanistan. We’re enabling our government to negotiate drug prices for seniors, taking a chunk out of the monopoly control pharmaceutical companies have enjoyed for a century. We’re returning manufacturing of essential goods and components like computer chips and electric vehicles to the United States, ending our dependence on not-always-friendly governments and weakened supply chains.

We are finally taking significant action to offset the effects of climate change, reduce carbon emissions, and bring the dream of energy self-sufficiency to fruition. And most remarkably, thanks to the leadership of President Biden and his Department Chiefs at State and Defense, the flow of weapons, humanitarian aid, and overwhelming diplomatic support has helped Ukraine achieve remarkable success hardly anyone thought possible in pushing Russian forces out of occupied territory. And we’re learning, today, that our unified action has energized Russian opposition to Vladimir Putin.

As the House Committee investigating January 6th, the Department of Justice, and law enforcement officials in Georgia and New York continue to uncover shameful and likely criminal actions by Donald Trump, Americans are waking up to the reality that Trump was intent on destroying our democracy and President Biden is the leader many of us hoped he would be. His approval ratings have risen from the high thirties to the mid-forties, and the trend in forecasts for the midterm elections no longer portends domination by Trump’s extremism.

Everything could go south again, but the forces of decency and reason in America are in the ascendancy. Our job is to maintain that momentum. Our future depends on it.

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Tough Choices

Posted on September 9, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, September 9, 2022

The next couple of months are not a time when Americans who care about our future can afford to take our eyes off the ball. We’re under a lot of stress, from inflated prices, women’s (and their partners’) concerns about reproductive health, people feeling ostracized because of the gender of their life partners, to teachers facing unprecendented censorship of what they can teach. That’s enough to exhaust most people by the end of the day, and it’s exactly what the forces of darkness count on.

As Trumpism was growing and showing itself for what it really is, (greed, bigotry, homophobia, xenophobia, misogyny,) The Washington Post adopted the creed: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” It’s a clear statement with two equally important meanings. The Post declared that it would fight to protect the rights guaranteed in the First Amendment with its dying breath, if need be, and warned America to demand light and transparency whenever its leaders speak.

I’m particularly struck by the way the death of Queen Elizabeth II has swept everything else out of our public view. I’ve never understood Americans’ obsession with the British monarchy from which we spent six years of bloody war freeing ourselves, though I appreciate the deep feeling many in the UK and the Commonwealth have for it. Maybe mourning for a queen who devoted her entire life to her people is a good thing for us; no one would ever confuse the moral and ethical leadership or the self-sacrifice of Elizabeth with the self-serving narcissism and megalomania displayed by Trump.

After a week of mourning, Brits will go back to dealing with harsh realities: terrible inflation, a new Prime Minister striving to win the confidence of her people after a bungled Brexit, and with winter coming, the crushing cost of energy and determining how much sacrifice it will take to help Ukraine push back Russian aggression. We face similar choices.

Our midterm elections, eight weeks from now, may be the critical nexus in the future of our democracy, as states controlled by Trumpers, will use gerrymandering and new voter restriction laws, and pull out all the stops to assure that opposition voters are silenced and their own partisans are given the power to decide all electoral disputes. This is our generation’s unspoken Declaration of Independence from tyranny. Will we show the same commitment the Continental Army did two-hundred-fifty years ago?

As the fight for the midterms builds up steam, we will be dealing with the national crisis over what to do about a former president who likely committed serious felonies, any one of which would see the rest of us imprisoned for life. I’ve stated my position: investigators and prosecutors must follow the evidence wherever it leads and not be intimidated by threats of violence. If the evidence warrants indictment and prosecution, those must proceed until a fair verdict is reached that demonstrates no one is above our law.

At that point I’m in the camp that favors a presidential pardon, not out of mercy or compassion for a man who clearly doesn’t deserve it, but for the sake of peace and tranquility in the country. There are many knowledgeable people who disagree with me on that last point, who argue that equal punishment under the law for crimes committed by a former president is a necessary deterrent against future presidents behaving the same way. We’ve heard the same argument rage for decades over the death penalty and mandatory sentencing guidelines, but I’ve seen no convincing evidence that the deterrence effect is worth ignoring the practical reality that millions of heavily armed people in this country might resort to violence, when a pardon might silence cries of partisanship and revenge.

We also face a debate over federal spending, which like its predecessors, will come down to the last second as it runs into a legal requirement to shut down the government when funding runs out. Neither side in our tragically divided politics wants that, but the issues in the spending bill proposed by Democrats are the same ones that have been in the headlines throughout 2022. How far can the administration go to support women’s rights in the face of the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v Wade? How deep is our commitment to standing firm against Russian aggression after months of price increases, food shortages, and broken supply chains? Do we still need to pump massive amounts of funding into COVID prevention and treatment?

It’s been an agonizing year, but we can’t quit just because we’re tired. Any cleric will tell you the Devil never rests or misses an opportunity to seize on his adversaries’ weaknesses. I don’t believe in the Devil, per se, but the image is a useful metaphor for standing up against entities who would drag us back to the days of tyranny and intolerance.

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