646 Comments

Both parents, now deceased, of one of my girlfriends spent the war at Manzanar. This is not some long-ago historic event. And don’t think for a minute that Americans would be safe from Trump’s predatory actions—no one would be safe.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Expand full comment

True words, you last statement, I hope. He is, has always been and will continue to be a menace until I’m not certain when. Some days it seems he will never pay the consequences of his misdeeds.

Expand full comment

He is a menace because he is enabled by cowardly GOP elected officials in Congress and by right-wing AND mainstream media, by ALEC and the Federalist Society, by evangelical pastors, by corporate leaders, by financiers, by some judges. The would-be emperor has no clothes and none of these folks have the spine to say so.

Expand full comment

Ann W,

.....Cowardly, ignorant, drunk on money and power.....all being played like puppets by the master thug Putin and his minions.....such as Trump....such as Carlson, etc., etc.

The more "church" members , the more money for their "pastor's" pockets, the more power to control the "worshipers".

We had better open our eyes and think for ourselves or we can only blame ourselves if we lose our hard fought for freedoms.

Do we really want to turn our country over to cowards? Trump and Carlson are just two of Putin's puppets.

How much stronger and courageous is a young, recent widow.....she will NOT be silenced! Navalny lives!!!! As long as freedom lives....Navalny lives!!!

In the USA, thanks to American Indians....thanks to all people of color.....When I was growing up and playing "cowboys and Indians" with our stick horses and string....I always wanted to be the Indian. The Indians always knew how to make their own weapons...how to find water, how to find a plant that would heal my "horse's" hoof...who could follow the path of the stars and understood when to plant according to the moon. how and when and where to hunt or fish.

Thanks to all people of color who came to the US on their own! Thanks to people of color who by the grace of God have survived us white folk.... with strength and goodness, intelligence and wisdom have shown us how to overcome in the

power of your character.

Expand full comment

When i was a kid, most movies the indigenous were "savages", with some tempering, eventually moviedom provided a more realistic story. Never realized how thoroughly North American native peoples were divested of their territories and pushed into reservations.

Expand full comment

Between 1819 and 1969, the U.S. ran or supported 408 boarding schools, the department found. Students endured “rampant physical, sexual, and emotional abuse,” and the report recorded more than 500 deaths of Native children—a number set to increase as the department's investigation of this issue continues. Their children were stolen to take away their culture, their language, their hope. Those released after 1969 suffer the consequences as any. severely abused child would, life on reservations often has limited legal protection especially for woman. American Indians are 2.5 times more likely to experience sexual assault crimes compared to all other races, and one in three Indian women reports having been raped during her lifetime. 34 percent of Native women are raped in their lifetimes. Between 2009 and 2021, 490 Indigenous women and girls were the victims of homicide. This translated into a rate of 4.27 Indigenous women and girls killed per 100,000 Indigenous women and girls in the population—a rate that was six times higher than for their non-Indigenous. A red handprint, usually painted across the mouth, is a symbol that is used to indicate solidarity with Missing and Murdered Indigenous. Yet many tribes still come together and fight not just for their sovereignty, their basic human rights, but for the health of the Earth which benefits all of us. Our dark history includes deceit , betrayal, broken treaties, and genocide of a wise and learned people yet they endure and are willing to try and show the errors of greedy ignorant white ways. If we do not acknowledge this dark history, teach it, and make amends for it, then we cannot mature and grow in wisdom, empathy, compassion, and shared humanity. If Germany was able to do this after the holocaust, then why can’t we?

Expand full comment

Because we refuse to take responsibility for those actions.

Expand full comment

also, along with endemic, multi-generational poverty comes sexual abuse in the form of incest / rape, alcoholism, suicide within tribal communities. In Canada were the residential schools, which were aimed at cultural indoctrination and assimilation through language destruction, removal from homes. Thanks to endemic disease such as tuberculosis, mortality among children was high. This was the prevailing wisdom, USA, Canada, Australia and so on when Europeans still saw themselves as racially superior. In case you're wondering, the Russians were doing the same thing as they expanded their empire across Asia.

Expand full comment
Feb 20·edited Feb 20

Linda, We have one of those boarding schools within a couple miles or so from us, Chemawa. As far as I know it is still operating. It has newer buildings now. It is also near a I-5 freeway exchange, so greeds would love to develop the area. I'm not sure who owns the land around it, but nearby land belongs to local Native American tribes. They also own land just beyond the end of our street where they wanted to build a casino. I think that is maybe not in the works now as i read recently that they are building apartments. To be frank, I am glad we are not having a casino. We used to play Chemawa in girls basketball and their coach was this tall blond that would have been at home in Nazi Germany. She would yell at them a lot. I never saw her smile. My husband's paternal grandmother had nothing good to say about Native Americans and since we were married in Sierra Leone, she was worried I was black. The irony of all this is that his maternal grandmother had Lakota ancestry and was well aware of it, but didn't tell anyone here. Since then we have enjoyed getting to know some of his cousins of Lakota descent and learning that history including boarding schools. Right now the Gnome (governor of South Dakota) is banned from sovereign nation land in her state because her remarks about the border vis a vis reservations. One of his cousins has posted for a very long time about her various sins. Lately, the cousin has done Tik Tok about his shoes....gold of course, and I believe has been banned because of "community standards".

Expand full comment

Karma for Indians every time someone loses at the gaming tables. ( In our area there are 2 tribes who have big casinos.)

Expand full comment

And there many of them stay. After all, they aren’t white according to the Europeans who invaded the U.S.

Expand full comment

Damn, those skin tones identify the worth of a human, so some think. Dark skin may have had an evolutionary advantage but it sure pissed off the “monied conquerors” of the era. Whiteys haven’t recognized the advantages of darker skin tones, just used them to target and denigrate. How stupid the “white is right” folks are, especially when they hooked up with the “Jesus loves me more than you” folks. Hey, Jesus wasn’t a whitey. Ignorance rules the fools.

Expand full comment

Marginalized societies have indeed struggled throughout, the legacy of economic disadvantage remains in place.

Expand full comment

But we found out the truth about the native Indians. I really appreciate this history lesson--of course I knew about the internment camps, but I had no idea as to what length the government to induce suffering on Asian immigrants. Stripping them of their citizenship? Honestly....

Expand full comment

Emily, your comment is so powerful. When I was little, we played "Annie Oakley," so she was my favorite hero of the Wild West. We didn't fight "Indians," but we certainly had plenty of opportunity to cheer on those fights on (very early) TV. And all I remember about them from my Catholic grammar school education was stories about how the Iroquois tortured and killed the Jesuits. What we weren't taught was that the Iroquois were not unique in using torture as part of their "civilization." That led me to find this article, and now it's going to take me some time to recover from what I learned - and remember it to call forth when needed.

https://www.latimes.com/books/la-ca-jc-civilizing-torture-20181122-story.html#:~:text=Among%20the%20Huron%20and%20the,assimilation%20into%20a%20new%20clan.

I hope you are sharing in other places, including MSM. Thank you.

Expand full comment

Do we take our guests to show off a grocery store? Do we go grocery shopping with a full cart on vacation? I assume Tucker was not there for a very long time-just long enough to see the ballet (who knew?), throw snowball questions to Putin, and grocery shop. Not impressed. He is Putin's poisoned ant who is suppose to spread the poison to the folks at home.

Expand full comment

And by gullible people who think he walks on water...albeit very muddy water.

Expand full comment

Worshipping idols is a sin. Heard that somewhere…

Expand full comment

Last night my husband and I wondered how many of the Ten Commandments Trump had violated. Easily half: #2 (worshipping false idols — Mammon, or Putin et al?); #3 (misuse of Lord’s name); # 4 (keeping Sabbath holy — [golfing]); #7 (adultery, see Stormy etc); # 8 (stealing — see civil fraud verdict and Trump University cases); #9 (false witness against they neighbor —where to begin on this one? Stolen Election on the one hand, “never met E Jean Carroll” on the other and soooo much more); #10 (coveting thy neighbor’s house — Trump coveting the White House? Who doesn’t think he’s covetous?). Ok we all break the Sabbath, but more than half regardless. And still the RR (religious right) doesn’t mind one bit.

Expand full comment

It seems highly likely that he has also ended the lives of many people, albeit indirectly. Nevertheless, a clearly foreseeable result of his actions.

Expand full comment

I think you've gone easy on tfg. He's murdered (Jan 6, Covid). I think he's honored his father, the prototypical scumbag bigot, but I'm not sure about his mother -- she was an immigrant, and we know what he thinks of those people. He can't possibly have a good relationship with God. Satan, probably, but God? Highly doubtful.

Expand full comment

Redemption is a biggie with the ones I know. Preachers often own up to sins and brag that they have been forgiven (I knew a doozie). They just think it's proof that God will forgive them. Always a win-win for some of the worst offenders. I heard a guy in S.C. say that they could sin on Sat and be forgiven on Sun morn. He was talking about the lies they spread about John McCain. God is not amused.

Expand full comment

Thanks Jeri!

"You shall have no other gods before me. This is expressed in the Bible in Exodus 20:3, Matthew 4:10, Luke 4:8 and elsewhere, e.g.: Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am the Lord your God."

Expand full comment

Chump hasn't read that part, or maybe he has, just doesn't think it pertains to him. Ignorance metastasizes in cults

Expand full comment

And some make excuses for idols and graven images.

Expand full comment

All true. But again, when will it ever end?

Expand full comment

In November, if we do our jobs.

Expand full comment

He must be almost due for another birthday?

Expand full comment

He was born on "Flag Day" 1946. Ironically but no surpisingly, he doesn't know the "Pledge of Allegiance" because, of course, the only allegiance he knows is to himself.

Expand full comment

I did write a comment. Gone? I just recalled the time at an official function the proceedings began with the national anthem. Everyone with hand on heart, except guess who, standing there smirking proudly with arms by sides. Melania, without looking at him, gave his right hand a surreptitious swat, and he raised it to where his heart might expect to be found.

Expand full comment

Ann, his supporters don't "have the spine to say so" because they have no clothes on either

Expand full comment

Ann W., I wonder when or where in your life you first became acquainted with the "Emperors new clothes" tale? Such a valuable little 'fairey tale' which ought to be mandatory for every 3rd grader to read and for teachers to laugh with them about. Usually, it seems, I find myself to be among the few who planted that on #45 in this forum several years back when it was so appropiate.

Expand full comment

Possibly in third grade also; I don't remember

Expand full comment

Thank you Ann. So much in all those little "tales" for kids to apply all thru-out (our) their lives. They deal with our nature, as humans (human nature, keep yer guard up as I always half-jokingly say). Having changed schools and boarded with so many families (of various religious bents) growing up, I wasn't sheltered. Trouble is, we now have "Captain Underpants" on the library shelf or in the primary school classroom inventory of crap.

Expand full comment

I did also, but at home screaming at the TV.

Expand full comment

Honestly, I cannot believe that a handful of whack jobs are calling the shots in this country....

Expand full comment

Ann,

You are spot on!! Thank you.

Expand full comment

Spot on. I would add the Heritage Foundation with its blueprint for fascism, Project 2025.

Expand full comment

Pat, I have started watching "Entitled people who get arrested" on YouTube because I feel the same as you about Trump. That it seems that "he will never pay the consequences of his misdeeds."

I see these entitled people who speed down the highway at 120 mph, and whine when stopped, "What did I do wrong?" After many explanations, these people still won't accept responsibility. They'll scream things like, "Don't touch me! You're not allowed to touch me." "You can't do this to me!" "Do you know who I am??" and one of my favorites, "That's NOT my cocaine, heroin, meth, fentynol, (as it's being pulled out of their pockets.)

When I see these law breakers who think they deserve special treatment and are disresctful and rude, I get so aggravated. THEN, I see them get handcuffed and arrested and that makes me believe that there is still justice, and that justice will prevail in holding Donald Trump accountable for his many crimes and misdemeanors.

I'm 75 years old and people laugh when I tell them that my favorite shows are "COPS" and "Entitled people who get arrested." My other favorite watch is TCM. What a difference between the two. I can watch "COPS" to feel justice, and TCM to feel relaxed.

Expand full comment

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is on TCM tomorrow night. Hardly PC, but still a great movie. I may watch it in memory of my brother, who loved it.

Expand full comment

I love that movie! TCM provides quality movies with strong plots and dialogue, without blood-curdling violence and cursing every other word. The actors and actresses who starred in those movies will live on.

One of my favorites is "The Grapes of Wrath". These movies put us in touch with history and portray life as it was for our parents and grandparents.

Expand full comment

We just finished The Night Manager, based on a LeCarre novel. The end was very satisfying because the arrogant bad guy (Hugh Laurie) is telling the Brit who caught him (Olivia Coleman)that he will soon be home on his private island drinking a 30 year old scotch. That's not what happens.

Expand full comment

Good!! There seems to be so many entitled people nowadays. I can't help but think that Trump has condoned and encouraged their entitlement and that's why they like him so much.

Expand full comment

To be entitled to a degree, all you had to be was white and preferably a male and probably Protestant.

Expand full comment

Michelle. What's do sad to me is that so many of these entitled people are young men and women- 18-30 yrs old. They have absolutely no respect for authority and can't fathom that they would go to jail. They all say , "I'll sue you and your whole police dept!",

profanity laced.

Is this behavior learned at home and/or from social media?

The times ,they are a-changin'.

Expand full comment

Tv has become a wasteland.

Expand full comment

True, but I still love watching COPS.:)

Expand full comment

There are islands of entertainment, if you can stand the ads which take up as much time as the content.

Expand full comment

And I do not watch TV except college basketball and our SDPadres. I stopped watching any televised news long ago. The reality shows that used to be on TV in businesses - really?!

Expand full comment

I stopped watching the news also.

I get my info from HCR and some commentators on YouTube.

Expand full comment

“Unless one lives and loves in the trenches, it is difficult to remember that the war against dehumanization is ceaseless.”

— Audre Lorde

Expand full comment

Thanks Fern.

The only way in which one can make endurable man’s inhumanity to man, and man’s destruction of his own environment, is to exemplify in your own lives man’s humanity to man and man’s reverence for the place in which he lives." Alan Paton

("the late Alan Paton, author of the acclaimed anti-apartheid novel “Cry, the Beloved Country,” also was frequently mentioned as a Nobel candidate during his lifetime. But he never won."

Expand full comment

Nice quote.

Old Republicans favor continued aid to Ukraine's far-right thug regime, while younger Republicans oppose it.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240219/vote-for-ukraine-aid-exposes-deep-generational-gap-within-republican-party-1116876639.html

It seems that there are a lot of old people around here, and that there is a lot of support around here for Ukraine's far-right thug regime.

Expand full comment

John, I wonder if you think of Putin's kleptocracy as a "thug regime?" Putin's opponents keep having "accidents" and dying.

Expand full comment

Please do not feed the troll

Expand full comment

p.p.s. And the fascist minion in the White House continues to support what the rest of the world is starting to openly call genocide in Gaza.

As Foreign Ministers from around the world gather in Brazil, Lula (the President of Brazil) baldly stated that what Israel is doing in Gaza is genocide:

https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2024/02/brazil-israel-row-escalates-lula-declared-persona-non-grata

Expand full comment

There is no doubt, John, that the situation in Israel and Gaza is cruel and heartless. At the core of the hate is religion. Creating a state by the name of Israel for Jews, displacing the inhabitants, was a mistake. Israel had not existed as a state, a nation, since the time the Assyrians conquered Israel in 721 B.C. - 2700 years. Because the mutual hate is visceral and the price of weakness is death, I see no resolution - ever.

Expand full comment

Ignore Schmeek,he thrives on your response. Kind of like drumpf and every other sociopathic idiot out there, come to think of it.

Expand full comment

Quoting Israel’s martyred Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin:

"It is with your bitter enemy that you make peace."

The textbook example for finding a lasting peace with religious bitter enemies is the 1648 Peace of Westphalia ending the 30 Years' War.

With that example in mind, here is my peace plan for the Middle East:

1. Israel faces an existential crisis as soon as the U.S. "aid spigot" gets cut off for whatever reason (including possible American political or economic crisis).

2. Any viable solution must enable Israel to be secure without constant infusions of American aid.

3. This requires peace with Israel’s neighbors, including Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

4. This requires undoing the Nakba terrorist atrocity and withdrawing to the U.N.-mandated pre-1948 borders.

5. This can only be done in the context of peaceful economic integration throughout the region, for the benefit of all. A lasting peace must be guaranteed individually by each permanent member of the U.N. Security council, and endorsed by Israel’s neighbors.

6. The recent Hamas atrocities were sparked by provocations (yet again) at the Dome of the Rock. The dream of rebuilding the Temple of Herod must be given up and replaced by the will to rebuild the Temple of Solomon in its correct location.

Expand full comment

Richard, the manipulation of the core principles of most religions is a factor in fueling hatred for others, but manipulation is at the root of the problem. Power, control over others and greed as well as propaganda, are they not the major sources of hatred?

Expand full comment

This youtube song about Biden and Netanyahu's genocide is now "age-restricted," a chilling example of fascist thought control:

https://youtu.be/dEG76hlnhNw?si=JEHIiP8sAxW8NSn-

Expand full comment

p.s. Here in the American kleptocracy, Vampire Conservatives, led by the thuggish President, ripped off the rest of the world with Unpayable Debt to support a tax cut for the rich, thank you, thank you.

And then the Vampire Liberals doubled down on the global theft, sucking more Unpayable Debt from the world to to spend on Worthwhile Programs.

The klepto Russians are just pikers: We're the bully-boy Big Guys.

Expand full comment

John, there is no argument from me that American oligarchs control the American economy and are sucking trillions out of it annually. Trump and the Republicans ran up the national debt $8.2 trillion in his four years in office. It started with Reagan with massive tax breaks. the Middle Class has just about disappeared. The U.S. is at the point of being a full-fledged oligarchy with the oligarchs using propaganda (wedge issues: abortion, gay rights, immigration, etc.) to persuade the gullible to vote against their own best social and economic interests.

Expand full comment

Please do not feed the troll.

Expand full comment

Was the recent death of Navalny a "false flag" op meant to discredit Putin before the upcoming Russian elections? If so, I suspect that old fascists like you will be chanting the talking points.

Question: How many people died suddenly when they were about to testify against Bill and Hillary Clinton?

Answer: Count 'em up for yourself:

https://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/BODIES.php

Expand full comment

John, back at you: https://www.rferl.org/a/enemies-kremlin-deaths-prigozhin-list/32562583.html

The list of those who have run afoul of Putin and who have had recent fatal accidents is long.

Expand full comment

Richard, I have reported this negative force about 5X , which you continue to engage with. He is polluting the forum. May your attempts prolong his presence here? He is not only taking up a lot space, he is also turning the forum into a horror show.

Please reflect on this situation. The report function just eliminates him one report at a time. I will not continue to take the time to report him. Some subscribers know to ignore him, recognizing his work as a highly negative distraction. You might consider that option.

Expand full comment

Back at you: So Putin is just as bad as the Clintons, with dozens and dozens of suspicious deaths:

https://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/BODIES.php

My point all all along is that we're worse than Russia, but Orwellian "Emperor's Clothes" liars intimidate the little people into acting like sheep-like "good Germans" who don't ask uncomfortable questions.

Expand full comment

Your implication that the Clintons orchestrated the mass cover-up operation concealing multiple mysterious and systemic deaths fails miserably in the Monica Lewinsky matter. Explain please. I’m mildly interested.

Expand full comment

Please do not feed the troll.

Expand full comment

It wasn't the Clintons who were running the assassinations; it was their partner in crime Jeb Bush, as exposed (in part) by Al Martin.

Expand full comment

Sorry you seem to be so 'Putin blind'. No analysis/opinion is worth squat if it has only one leg to stand on.

Expand full comment

He's a troll. You can report him using the 3 dots at the bottom of his "Comment(s).'

Expand full comment

Please do not feed the troll.

Expand full comment

Steve Abbott, your post is similar to that of Richard Sutherland, and discussion continued here:

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-19-2024/comment/49943891

Perhaps you will have thoughts to share on that sub-thread.

Expand full comment

The far-right thug regime ended with Russian Puppet Yanukovych.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yanukovych

Expand full comment

Aaron Davis, you are sadly mistaken. After the Maidan Revolution, the leader of the far-right thugs, Arsen Avakov, was made Interior Minister, in charge of the police stations, as far-right gangs rampaged with impunity. American fascists, led by creepy Joe Biden, turn a blind eye to the sickening blot on the face of humanity that Ukraine has become:

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/neo-nazis-far-right-ukraine/

Expand full comment

That is a dated article. Zelensky was democratically elected and represents the victims of the Nazis. Putin is much more of an autocrat than Zelensky, who could have fled his home country but stayed to resist the onslaught of the so-called mighty Russian army. Ukrainian patriotism seems very strong and the history with Russia is not lost on the survival of this breadbasket to the world, whose farm products are so needed in many areas. Anyone who is a Putin lap dog like Trump and yourself only deserves scorn.

Expand full comment

Troll

Expand full comment

Please do not feed the troll.

Expand full comment

It is not dated, because Zelensky KEPT IN PLACE the political boss of the neo-Nazis, Arsen Avakov, as Interior Minister in charge of the police.

Expand full comment

Sputnik = Russian origin propaganda. You are really full of it. But that’s what long hours on the road does to you. It makes you crave for attention.

Expand full comment

Troll

Expand full comment

Please do not feed the troll.

Expand full comment

The facts (and the western source) in that Sputnik article speak for themselves. Fascist thought-controllers want the rest of us not to look at alternative sources of information.

Scholars could argue if Heather Cox Richardson is more biased than Sputnik. I've been posting examples of HCR's bias as part of my substack "notes," here:

https://substack.com/profile/85178460-john-schmeeckle/notes

I profitably read both HCR and Sputnik, and I think for myself, too.

Expand full comment

When the great 2nd American revolution comes, (and it’s a’ comin’) electing Bernie Sanders as Dictator for Life, and, as Chief of Propaganda Disinformation Elimination Squad, I will authorize to have you picked up and sent to The Green Acres Funny Farm where you will be able to play with toy trucks and talk to imaginary personalities of history behind locked gates for the remainder of your existence.

Expand full comment

Troll

Expand full comment

Please do not feed the troll.

Expand full comment

"There's someone in my head, but it's not me"

https://youtu.be/1Z39KZAryzk?si=6ZpLeY_QSNyDSPt8

Expand full comment

"Watch what you say, they'll be calling you a radical

A liberal, oh, fanatical, criminal"

https://youtu.be/low6Coqrw9Y?si=5KnHvNKgg6TNsw3c

Expand full comment

Take your foolish and fact-free trolling somewhere else.

Expand full comment

Just ignore him, Jon.

Expand full comment

He's a troll.

Expand full comment

Please do not feed the troll.

Expand full comment

Coke-head the troll woke up and pulled the bloody wad of kleenex out of his nose.

Expand full comment

Bo-ring. Bo-ring, bo-ring, bo-ring. Can't you come up with anything new? Or is that beyond your third-grade intelligence?

Expand full comment

He's a troll

Expand full comment

Coke-head the troll wants people to know that he's bored.

Expand full comment

John do you get paid by someone to post this deranged drivel? I guess everyone needs to eat as long as you know what you are posting is BS. None of this will work with this crowd. You are better off trying to influence others. But maybe if we engage you here, we can keep you from harming others

Expand full comment

He's a troll

Expand full comment

Norman, your post is an excellent example of cyber-fascist thought-control intimidation.

You can do better than that.

Turn away from the Dark Side...

Expand full comment

Soon, younger voters will be led by the nose to say:

" All the old people supported Biden’s disastrous support of the fascist regime in Ukraine that destroyed the value of the U.S. Dollar. Now we have a financial crisis, so let's cut medicaid and Social Security for those stupid fascist Baby Boomers who ruined us, because we're absolutely broke."

Expand full comment

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere

No truer words were ever spoken, and none more crucial to our future.

Expand full comment

Cindy, Thank you for posting this urgent warning. I simply would add that we must do a better job of reaching out to the so-called good people standing silently on the sidelines—moral accomplices, in my view— to show that their human rights also could be violated.

Expand full comment

Yes,I agree with you.A lot of these people who are standing with him right now will be languishing in these camps for a variety of reasons. No one would be safe from his wrath.

Expand full comment

Victoria, While I expressly was referring to people, who, for whatever reason, seemingly have turned away from engaging in the present struggle, like you, I believe no one is safe as civic and democratic institutions increasingly weaken.

Expand full comment

Doesn’t seem like it would be a hard sell - but apparently it is.

Expand full comment

Laurie, Hence my reason for focusing especially on this group.

Expand full comment

Cindy Lemaire: This posting by our able historian, Professor Heather Cox Richardson, is very eloquent, and your comment is worthy of this history. "Don't think for a minute that Americans would be safe from Trump's predatory actions."

The racist, Stephen Miller, foresees internment camps, of course in Texas with the cooperating hands of Governor Greg Abbott, who erects razor wire barriers to women and their toddlers and children seeking safety in America.

This 76-year-old has seen Abbott, DeSantis and Trump bring back Jim Crow.

Expand full comment

Martin Niemoller is justly famous for having written, “First they came for the Communists…,” but I think I prefer Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch: “Everyone counts or no one counts.”

Expand full comment

I have toured Manzanar. It made me very sad to think we would treat any human as the people there were treated.

Expand full comment

I read a book by a girl interred with her family. As soon as they got to the concentration camp, the men started planting gardens. Teachers came in to teach the children. All sorts of goods were sent in. Men interred there were sent out on jobs they were skilled at. all was not good of course, (like outdoor bathrooms) but they built nice cabins, etc. I'm not at all condoning what they did, but it wasn't like Germany. Her father has a thriving business in the San Diago area. After the war, she wrote that he was a broken man.

Expand full comment
Feb 20·edited Feb 20

They weren’t sent to gas chambers like in Germany.

Aside from that, the similarities are striking. The internees weren’t allowed to own property. Some were able to sell—at rock-bottom prices. Others transferred title to friends. Sometimes they were able to retrieve their property after the war, often not. I’m not sure why you think they had “nice cabins”. They lived in unheated and uncooled barracks and families were separated. The Owen’s Valley is over 6000 feet high and gets bitterly cold in winter and hot in summer. The internees were allowed to educate their children, which is certainly better than not. What was perpetrated against them was criminal. Kindly don’t try to whitewash it.

Expand full comment

Goodness, I'm not trying to white wash it. Maybe she tried to whitewash it. I'm saying what she wrote. Her father lost everything being there. And of course, itwas criminal. And many volunteer especially women went into the camp to educate and help the children to right what our government did to these people I've read many many Holocaust survival books. I know the difference. I know what it is to renovate a house myself learning how to build walls , insulate, etc. Then have it all burn down because a thirteen year old boy could not read the instructions I left him. I know what it is like when I was 70 to start the renovation of a "dilapidated cabin" with no floor, water, or electricity or heat.. I know what it is like building studding and insulating it. putting in the walls, painting, staining etc. and moving forward one step at a time. Finding thermopane windows in sheds or donated to me. I know what it is like to build fence after fence myself so I can welcome the deer to my place. I know how to wash and dry clothes they way they had to as at 70 I stopped using appliances. Two weeks ago, I built another door. Put in more shelves. today I plan to change the five cat boxes (no litter) and wash and bleach their pads and cotton shop wipes in the two tubs (which become gardens once they develop holes). They started with nothing and built themselves a life. I know what it is like to care for my 50 sheep I had up until 2018 by myself, delivering the 83 lambs the last year I had lambs. They made the best of what they had. And as I said, they had other Americans who sympathized with them and helped them in their hour of need. I also have the same. I never ever wanted to be beholdened to my drunken parents and "did it my way." The author of the book made a trip back to see what their concentration camp looked liked. the gardens were gone . Some of the stone paths were still there. The cabins were gone.

Expand full comment

Sorry, I didn’t mean to reply to your comment. Tiny screen.

Expand full comment

"Farewell to Manzanar"? Required reading once in the jr high level where I taught.

Expand full comment

I loved Isabel Allende's novel, The Japanese Lover. "

."....Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the two are cruelly pulled apart as Ichimei and his family—like thousands of other Japanese Americans—are declared enemies and forcibly relocated to internment camps run by the United States government...."

Expand full comment

Please do not miss Robert Reich’s Substack about the dynastic wealth of the Mellon generations.

Expand full comment

Ms. Lemaire, thank you for your comment. I agree that we are kidding ourselves thinking that we are safe from having our citizenship taken from us and even being deported to a country that even our parents never lived in. It sounds far fetched but I read Heather’s letter and listen to the ravings of the former president and see the lack of checks and balances and I wonder are any of us safe.

Expand full comment

I would bet Melania would be safe, Cindy.

Expand full comment

I visited this site a few years ago. It isn't far from Bishop where my daughter lives with her family. I recommend planning a visit. I had never heard of it and I was in my 70's at the time of my visit.

Expand full comment

AND you get to see Bishop!

Bishop recently won a city planning award. Then there are the bristlecone pines. ❤️ Hi to your daughter, she’s chosen a beautiful place.

Expand full comment

Cindy, my daughter owns and operates The Dance School of Bishop.

Expand full comment

Marvelous! Just because they’re remote doesn’t mean those kids shouldn’t have nice things to help them achieve their potential. ❤️

Expand full comment

"Texas plans to construct a military base along the border with Mexico, the state's Republican governor announced Friday..."

"in the flashpoint border town of Eagle Pass, where he has amassed national guard troops from Texas and other Republican-led states to erect razor wire and other barriers in a bid to block migrants from entering the country."

https://news.yahoo.com/texas-build-military-mexico-border-225218849.html

See HCR's last paragraph. The name "Stephen Miller" keeps popping up. One of the most dangerous people in the country.

Expand full comment

All of you, please look up the Wikipedia biography of my dear friend, 100 year old Mitsuye Yamada. Intervened as a teenager and went on to be highly honored educator, poet, board member of Amnesty International, and fiery Democrat. I learned more about the internments ( not included in my history courses) from her poetry and personal recollections than from anywhere else. Her latest publication of poems was published at 96. The fire, spirit, and humor are still strong. I have marched (her in a wheelchair and me with a cane) in at least three women’s events since Trump became President. She always gathered a crowd. Do read her books.

Expand full comment

History may not exactly repeat itself, but it can certainly "rhyme"!

Expand full comment

Just because Ford apologized for Manzanar doesn't make more stringent immigration policy unjust. Not all Japanese Americans were loyal Americans, like not all Iranian or Russian Americans support US aid to Israel or Ukraine. Teachers and leaders of anti-Jewish pro-Russian, Communist and Muslim politics should be legally challenged.

Expand full comment

We once drove by Manzanar. There was just a small sign.

Expand full comment

Thank you, Professor! I was an "alien" when I came to the US from England in 1964 and I always thought that was an extraordinary term and rather derogatory. It made me feel as if I was from another planet, or somewhere in between! I thought I had come to a fine, noble country but now I am wondering...

When I became a citizen, we were herded like cattle and I ended up in tears until a dear little lady from the DAR congratulated me on the courthouse steps and gave me a booklet of the Constitution and a little flag. I will never forget her kindness and I'm still here, fighting for democracy.

Expand full comment

Keep fighting, Sally! Thanks for sharing your experience. Our country will never be perfect, it will always be a work-in-progress, as democracy is a fragile treasure to be defended, safeguarded and cherished. Citizenship is an important job that mustn't be shirked, or we'll lose it.

Expand full comment

Self-governance cannot just be a choice from a menu overseers. We hire professional "representatives" to do the horse work of governing for us, and to (ideally) provide expertise, but if we don't call the shots, somebody else will; and if we don't keep a watchful and informed eye on our own society, things can get really out of hand.

Expand full comment

Your are so right JL! We cannot let the fatigue of the last 8 years of Trump and his evil cronies exhaust us. It is so important that we keep that watchful eye all the way to the voting booth!

Expand full comment

I wonder if the economic pivot of valuing American’s as “consumers”, rather than pesky “citizens” is a source of the contemporary rise of Fascism? Since donald’s rise I have noticed more emphasis on “citizenry”. Perhaps a very pernicious effect of the general “plenty”/ “abundance” a majority of white people enjoyed during the later part of the 20th century, made us as lazy, mentally obese, and as dis-eased as our bodies have become on the Standard American Diet? Much was wrong in paradise. Democracy needed this awakening. Whether we have the fitness / endurance / wisdom to preserve it, will be telling.

Expand full comment

What about common decency and the Golden Rule? That’s what all the law books boil down to. We seem to have gotten into the habit of over-analyzing the most obvious meanings of our laws. The founders ignored the rights of anyone but themselves . We managed to make progress. It wasn’t easy. Now we have to fight for freedom and progress again against people who care only for themselves. It was a hard read,Professor. We can’t go back.

Expand full comment

Like copyright law, if you plagiarize others work without appropriate acknowledgment you have no right to demand others respect your rights, even if your work is registered.

Expand full comment

Interesting that a woman of the DAR was so kind to you, but am glad she was. You know, Sally, correct wording is so important to us all. Being called an alien is so demeaning. My parents were victims of the Holocaust and I cannot even imagine the tortured words that were used against.

Expand full comment

*speaking of words..should’ve ended my sentence with “them”!

Expand full comment

Oh, not really. I just thought that was strong, punchy prose.

Expand full comment

Marlene,

If you're posting online, the ellipse (...) to the bottom right of your message allows you to edit after you have posted.

Expand full comment

It doesn’t. It offers “share,” “hide,” and “report.” Does “hide” mean delete?

Expand full comment

I know if you click "..." for someone else's post you get "report" (meaning they should be considered for banning, I believe). You can only edit your own post. When I click "..." for my posts, all that it does is take me into edit mode for my post.

Expand full comment

Don, it doesn’t work for me. This happens all the time but thanks anyway.

Expand full comment

The Biden administration has removed the word "alien" from immigration literature/laws/references.

Expand full comment

I am trying to”like” your two comments and I press the like button and it shows up and then goes away?

Expand full comment

Sally, it's a good fight. It is a noble country, even nobility gets sick! People like you are the cure.

Expand full comment

A wonderful comment, Bruce. Thank you.

Expand full comment

Thank you for staying

Expand full comment
Feb 20·edited Feb 20

"The broader lesson that I think should be drawn from this discussion is that the terms we use to refer to different groups of people are not merely neutral or impartial descriptions. Instead, the very words we use to understand our social and political world can not only influence political debates and opinions but may already carry with them implicit ethical judgments about how to structure and change our world. But this doesn’t mean that we should just give up on describing our world accurately or abandon critical investigation of the words we use as just overblown and overly sensitive “political correctness.” Rather it means that how we see our world goes hand in hand with what our values are. How we should describe different classes of immigrants will depend partly and more broadly on what we envision justice in immigration to be. " https://www.scu.edu/ethics/focus-areas/immigration-ethics/immigration-ethics-resources/immigration-ethics-blog/words-matter-illegal-immigrant-undocumented-immigrant-or-unauthorized-immigrant/

Expand full comment

Stephen Miller has a race and people problem…big time! It is he who has read Mein Kampf probably 10 times, not his boss. He is an embarrassment to us Jews, especially those of us whose parents went through the Holocaust. Miller has a sick infatuation with “camps”, internment or concentration. He is reminiscent of Hitler’s henchman, Adolf Eichmann. Even looks like him.

Expand full comment

My name for Miller is “ Trump’s Brain!” He’s an extremely evil man!

Expand full comment

There has not been much written about the "team" amassed for the Trump 2024 re-election effort. Miller and Bannon are among the tactical leaders of this effort. Perhaps Mr. Biden and his 'team' should be vigilant about the two aforementioned Trump generals, and perhaps the Biden people are. I'm not sure I am seeing much strategic/tactical movement from them, or from the DNC, for that matter. I guess they know best. I hope they know best.

Expand full comment

It's about time for Bannon to serve that prison sentence he's been given.

Expand full comment

Bannon! I left his name off the three pardonnees I mentioned the other day. The English serpent manages to keep out of the news. In England there are rumours that he's got the prime ministership in his sights.

Expand full comment

Bannon is a snake like Miller! He may be a bit quiet now, but he’ll crawl out from under his rock sooner or later!

Expand full comment

Snakes are smooth and can be hard to see. Skunk?

Expand full comment

Or the team that set up Trump - The Heritage Foundation, authors of Project 2025. Frightening. If you haven’t looked it up, the time is now

Expand full comment

DJT has a retinue of.revolting persons, with Stephen Miller holding the title “Most Disgusting Person”.

Oh … wait … there’s the especially odious Steven Miller.

People: we—you and I and other freedom lovers—are just a few months away from the most consequential election America has ever held. Those people—Miller, Bannon, Giuliani, Powell,and many others are deadly serious in planning to end the United States of America as we know it.

We have to get out the vote. It’s important.

I’ll see you at the November voting site.

Expand full comment

"the most consequential election America has ever held"

Well, at least for 160 years. The election of 1864 kept Abraham Lincoln in office, preserved the Union, and sealed the fate of the Confederate slave-holding oligarchs. I suppose the 1864 and the 2024 elections will be a tossup in terms of grave consequence.

Expand full comment

Since Day 1 of the trump regime he has been the scariest of them all. Maybe because he’s from Santa Monica, we in the Los Angeles area got an early knowledge of him and his evilness through the Los Angeles Times. I have watched him ever since, recognizing when trump is parroting him. Add him to Bannon and Stone and we see Nazi Germany all over again. We have to stay active and motivated, however difficult physically for some of us elders.

Expand full comment

He is unrepentently sinister.

Expand full comment

I’ve read that his family doesn’t support his political views! To a political creature like him, that probably doesn’t matter! Evil to the bone!

Expand full comment

That's a shortcut to power until enough people turn on it.

Expand full comment

Now you're scaring me, Marlene. He does resemble Eichmann!

Expand full comment

It’s uncanny, right?

Expand full comment

Poetic Injustice for sure

Expand full comment

Central casting.. imagine gaetz and meadows in SS uniforms ss well..

Expand full comment

I have a knee-jerk reaction whenever I see Stephen Miller’s name or face. I believe he embodies evil. We can never let him, or Steve Bannon, anywhere near a decision-making position in this country.

Expand full comment

The fact that he has sired two children with his equally horrid wife is enough to make you sick!

Expand full comment

Wow. They’ve not been married that long. I remember wondering how any self-respecting woman could even date him. Maybe I just answered my own question.

Expand full comment

Why does he still operate under the radar? He only rears his ugly head to spew venom periodically. Why is there nothing we can do to get rid of his influence and disgusting rhetoric. Embarrassment indeed.

Expand full comment

Thank you, Professor. Gosh darn it I am ashamed again. And you know what growing up we were taught about this. We were taught about the abuse of the Indians of the Asians of the Hispanics of the Irish, of the Italians of the polls of all eastern Block peoples that came to America for freedom. We open our arms yet we discriminate. I don’t like the way I feel, but we must not let this man get near the White House. The American people can make a change, and all of us combine from every walk of life or true Americans, and I know that we will stand side-by-side against the extremes I know I will, and with your words, I will take them and share them with others. You are a true patriot a night will walk along with you, besides you, behind you. But never in front of you this may sound like bravado, but I am being honest. Take care all. Stay compassionate stay kind, Schere, but be strong in your convictions. Again, thank you professor for everything.

Expand full comment

And one more thing. I’m sorry. All I have to say... And this is most important professor. Your words are inspirational and a lot of people especially like me thrive on inspiration… thank you.

Expand full comment

“ … we will stand side-by-side against the extremes.”

And,

“ Stay compassionate, stay kind.”

Mike, your wonderful phrase conjures a beautiful mind picture for me. In my head I see us standing strong, smiling, inviting others to join us. All are welcome.

Wonderful and heartening.

Thank you.

Expand full comment

Japanese immigrants could not get U.S. citizenship until the year I was born? And now Miller and Trump plan to take it away? VOTE.

Expand full comment

Miller is one creepy guy. Reminds me of Goebbels.

Expand full comment

I have been using both the English and the Japanese editions of George Takei's book on those camps.

Most Americans know George Takei as Sulu, commanding the USS Enterprise on Star Trek. But earlier in his life, at four years old, he, his younger brother and sister, and both parents were among the first forced into those internment camps.

So much has changed, in America, and Japan -- even in the life of Hollywood actor Takei, who worked with Martin Luther King, Jr., and many good others to bring about those changes. Takei wrote his book of manga about the camps, "They Called Us Enemy," which my Japanese students here find invaluable -- even if of such a distant era.

But is it so distant? MAGA idiots still plan more internment camps -- on a scale so millions may enjoy even larger, more punitive, prejudiced, vitriolic mass hatred. The Claremont Institute's Project 2025 has the blueprints for this all ready to go.

And the MAGA leader -- Vlad Putin -- is now killing fellow Russians like Alexei Navalny -- while MAGA in Congress do all they can to help Vlad kill Ukrainians on massive scale, and kill democracy, too -- for one fat, orange, waddling, diapered bigot, Supreme Court bribed theocrats, one Howdy Doody Speaker of the House, and congressional white trash illiterates all to enjoy democracy killed.

Expand full comment

I taught my students about the Asian exclusion act in a year long study of different groups of people and their American stories. Illinois requires Asian American history be taught, although being at a private school I was not obliged to. My students did projects on different aspects of Asian culture. The school has a sizable Asian population because it is affiliated with a University that has a sizable Asian faculty presence. We would look at the groups of Asians represented in our class and their patterns of immigration.----There is a series of films put out by UCLA I believe on Asian American history. In one episode they portray a Japanese family who had one son that identified with Japan and ended up being a spy for them. Showing this was important, but it was controversial too. It muddied the waters about whether or not there were Japanese sympathizers among the Japanese here. Of course there are going to be some. This is not a monolithic group.----- The UCLA Asian Studies department has been doing teacher training to teach this history and that of many groups of Asian Americans. I had a friend whose father was in such a camp. It came up one time when I was over at her house. Later on, I found that my neighborhood had had a camp for German-Americans. It was for those whom they did not send to Germany to repatriate them, some of whom were on Germany's side, some having never been to Germany. It is one reason my mom has never gotten US citizenship. She remembers that and feels that it can easily be taken away. ----Trump hates Germany or at least the people in charge even though he has a lot of right wing admirers in Germany who are members of the Heimat Party or the AfD.---Anyway, my friend whose father had been in a Japanese camp, never talked about it in school, although I think we learned about it when I was in middle school. That might have been what caused her to tell me about it at her house. If Trump were to revive the camps it would be interesting to see who would go into them, and how much every day Americans would look the other way as long as they were getting a paycheck and getting their children into the colleges of their choice. It is interesting to think of Texas extending its horrid reputation both for mistreatment of immigrants and for being a private prison state. It is well set up to take over Trump's mission. https://oertx.highered.texas.gov/courseware/lesson/1142/student/?section=4

Expand full comment

I like, Linda, how you draw on personal experiences from your students.

The results need not come out uniform, or programmatic, and you're well open to that.

Correct you are, too, to see some of the dangers coming from the far right in places like Texas. Some Dems in the U.S. have instead chosen Pollyanna as leitmotif -- those such as Simon Rosenberg puffing away at what he sees as Republicans imploding -- as if we can all coast, look the other way, whistle in the dark as R.'s organize to stop aid to Ukraine, as Putin rewards Tucker Carlson sycophancy with murder of Alexei Navalny.

Expand full comment

I disagree Phil Balla. I am a follower of Simon Rosenberg and his Hopium initiative. He is an adept political strategist helping supporters of democracy wanting credible, effective actions to push back against MAGA. He never sets himself up as being THE answer to the countries problems. He’s offering his expertise to others who want their frustration channelled into effective action. Being reminded of Biden’s accomplishments, and the accomplishments of former Democratic presidents creating jobs and reducing the deficit, as compared to the false gop talking points that we have suffered under for decades, is as educational for readers as Heather’s work here. I urge everyone wanting to do more than keyboard frustration at the universe to check out Simon Rosenberg’s Hopium Chronicles. It’s one additional way, one additional democracy-supporter, it using his talents to move the needle.

Expand full comment

Rosenberg uses many statistics and data. I find his charts very educational.

Expand full comment

Totally agree with you MLR…!

Expand full comment

just signed up for the free trial to check it out. Thanks for the info

Expand full comment

As of two weeks ago I'd agree with you, MLRGRMI.

But after Suozzi's win in the Queens and Long Island seat, Simon Rosenberg has gone overboard boasting of Dem recent wins and R "imploding." Do you think it's enough, the Dem status quo for door-knocking, phone banks, and post card campaigns?

I don't think Dem status quo suffices. Dems have many more resources needed, such as their several dozen really fine holders of public office across the land, at various levels. I think they should organize into rounds of appearances with each other, quoting each other, the practical results they've been achieving, and the need for much more to counter ongoing American needs, Putin's assassinations, the fat orange guy's criminality, the perjured, bribed theocrats on the Supreme Court, and Speaker of the House Howdy Doody's cover for the wash of dark money.

Expand full comment

I hear Simon differently than you, Phil Balla, I guess. After Souzzi’s win, I heard Simon breath a huge sigh of happiness that urging the supporters of Hopium to direct their energy actively, added to other grassroots movements doing the same thing toward the same end: Defeat MAGA up and down the ballot. I heard nothing about accepting the “status quo”. I did hear someone thank citizens for making the time and effort to get involved in constructive ways. Your idea for down-ballot legislators visiting each other I see already happening in my State. But I don’t believe that is Simon’s job, nor diminishes what he IS doing for the people in his sphere of influence. The gate is wide open for other positive leaders to get involved and make things happen in as many ways as possible, to amplify the truth, counter the false narratives of Foxlandia, or simply to be armed with good info to speak to family and friends. I’m not going to belittle anyone trying to do what they can to turn this shit-flooded-zone of the American Commons into a compost of Democratic Hope.

Expand full comment

By name, please, MLRGRMI, who are the "legislators visiting each other" at public forums?

You say you see that "already happening in" your state. Sure, they talk collegially in each other's offices and at each other's desks on the floor -- but at special forums, organized in advance, with public, press, and cameras present?

I invite your specificity as I never see this in the dozens of videos I see every day -- for months, years. As individuals, yes, they appear all the time one at a time for interviews, with MSNBC, CNN, PBS, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post. That's the status quo, appearing alone. Journalists appear on panels together, and often have very good discussions. But no Dems holders of public office with each other.

I've only good words, as do you, for Simon Rosenberg's role for the status quo. But we need more than door knocking, post cards, phone banks. When I bring this up with Simon himself, he's very uncivil, calling me a troll for suggesting more, and that I should "stop it."

Expand full comment

Linda,

Thank you for reminding us that the animals may be much better, at least more realist about who they are and how they live than we!

Expand full comment

The Canadian biologist David Suzuki has written quite a bit about growing up in a Canadian interment camp.

Expand full comment

I did not know the Canadians did it too.

Expand full comment

Phil,

Thank you for the reminder that we will always have to work to choose the good....to NOT be ruled by the lies and prejudices around us but to love one another when we may be putting our friendships...sometimes our lives on the line....to seek the truth, to examine what we read or opinions we receive from those in our sphere of influence.

We must not just accept the opinions of even our dearest friends if we question their opinions. Sometimes maybe their opinions are not factual...maybe they have easily accepted false information because it is easier.

Expand full comment

It's good to repeat this shameful chapter of American history and that Trump would bring back such discriminatory practices with gleeful support from the MAGA crowd. It will help mobilize supporters of democracy to turn out for the November 2024 presidential election.

Expand full comment

Fear of and then hatred of "the Other" has been a thread throughout our history. Whenever we think that those sentiments are in the distance past, Trump opens his mouth to remind us that they are still very much with us. While no longer being invoked about Asians, the fear and hatred have just been transferred to immigrants in general, especially Central and Latin Americans, to Muslims, and to our own LGBTQ+ family and neighbors. Let us remember the shameful moments in our history and vow not to repeat them.

Expand full comment

Not just MAGA people. Dems who couldn’t be bothered or don’t like Biden’s age or whatever.

Expand full comment

General DeWitt said at the time that the fact that there had been no acts of sabotage by the Japanese in the U.S. was proof that they would surely commit them.

Hawaii (a territory back then) had a population that was roughly 1/3 Japanese. The FBI had already been busy collecting information on them. Although the Japanese were generally not incarcerated as they were on the West Coast, my grandfather was picked by the FBI and interned on the mainland because he was considered a prominent member of the community. My dad was an officer in the U.S. Army and traveled by bus to see his father. The guards brought his ailing father out and saluted him since he was an officer. On the bus back to camp, his fellow officer had tears in his eyes. I think Dad had tears, too.

In 1988, President Reagan issued an official apology and gave $20,000 to all former detainees WHO WERE STILL LIVING. By then, many had died and had long since lost the businesses and farms that they had labored so hard to build.

History keeps repeating itself.

Expand full comment

Hi Christine, my post of a half hour ago is of the experiences of my Mother-in-law at Heart Mountain and the irony of going through her file cabinets yesterday and finding the US government envelope with all the reparations paperwork, letter and whatever. My wife stuck it back in the cabinet and couldn't deal with it now. Jean Wakasuki and Jim Huston were friends of mine, growing up in Santa Cruz and I remember them working on their book, Farewell to Manzanar.

Your story is so familiar, yet still painful. My wife got to know some of the No No Boys at an event at the Japanese American Museum in LIttle Tokyo some years ago. They are all gone by now. My Mom-in-law was born on her father's farm in the Central Vally and her husband's family's thriving dry goods business in downtown Los Angeles was lost also.

Expand full comment

Heartbreaking to suffer, then work so hard to build something, then have it stolen.

Expand full comment

Thanks for sharing what must be both a painful and resilient family history, Christine.

Expand full comment

History merely records whether subsequent generations learned from the mistakes of their predecessors, or not. Anyone that can read your family's heartbreakingly unfair story and NOT learn its history lesson deserves to live a miserable life. Unfortunately democracy grades our generation's history test on the Electoral College curve.

Expand full comment

The Electoral College is not democratic. It's a 19th century anachronism. What is its current justification for existence?

Expand full comment

For electing people that are rejected by the majority of the public?

Expand full comment

Electoral College, in part, avoids the 'tyranny of the majority', a concern of Alexis de Tocqueville back in 1831. It was added to the Constitution to protect slave states and smaller states. But its antiquated, never modified to account for changes brought by modernity(such as an end to slavery!), now allows for tyranny by the minority of the majority! States could just award electors based on percentage of votes/districts won (2 states do so) as opposed to winner take all. Constitutional Amendment, yeah after the E.R.A. passes, which has been pending since 1972!

Expand full comment

It'll make a big difference when they fix it.

Expand full comment

Removing the Electoral College by Constitutional Amendment is essentially impossible. However, a work-around is in process. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC), drafted in 2006, will go into effect when the member states hold a majority of the electoral votes (currently 270) by July 20 (60 days) before the next Presidential Election. Their members currently hold 205 electoral votes with another 88 votes pending among states that have partly completed the process. When it is activated, the states in the compact agree to appoint electors for the candidate who won the National Popular Vote. It will render the Electoral College a moot legacy of the past.

Expand full comment

Thanks for the current numbers Don. Who comprises the 88 partially completed? Are they in stasis?

Expand full comment

It's justified by tradition and lazy Americans who hate it but won't work to change it. But..something is in motion. VERY slowly. But there is a solution. Check this out:

https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/national-popular-vote

Let's add the US Senate to the list of US "anachronisms". How long will we let a few thousand wing nut people dominate the people of states with populations of several million? Why does Iowa or Vermont have two Senators just like California and New York? That's not democracy! That's being ruled by an extreme minority of the few.

Anachronism number three: Expand the House of Representatives. Congress regularly increased the size of the House to account for population growth until it fixed the number of voting House members at 435 in 1911 when the population was 93,863,000. We have tripled but we remain crippled.

Anachronism number four: There are 13 appeals court circuits. Why are there only 9 Supreme Court Justices (appointed for life! good grief) ???

Expand full comment

Bill, if we kept the raw numbers where they are, but changed the representational power of each vote to reflect population of the area, that could work. Wyoming senators get a “1”, and New York senators get a “5”; other states would fall between those based on relative population. Any more than 445 in a body would be too cumbersome.

Expand full comment

Makes me tearful just hearing about your dad’s story. Such hatefulness must be eliminated. We desperately need a “nice” serum.

Expand full comment

Dear Marlene, I feel with you. My relatives, starting in 1923 (when my Grandparents fled Ukraine...Thank you Oma and Opa) all went into the gulags and slave labor camps in Russia, many for 30-40 years. One uncle recently passed away. He told me "it's a nasty way to come to faith". If my Asian friends feel about the USA anything like I do about the Russians...a "nice" serum would probably be an insult added to injury. How do you forgive a culture that does the same thing over and over again? Or do we all just need to stay prepared? Winter is coming.

Expand full comment

Each of my parents left their countries in the 30’s. My mom was from Berlin, my dad, from Poland. My mother and her siblings got out with 3 coming to America and one staying in London. When the wall came down it was only then that they discovered their parents died in the gas camp known as Chelmno. They died with 8-9 others in a van either supplied by Volkswagen or Ford.

Expand full comment

How painful that must have been, even after all those years.

Expand full comment

I'm very sorry about your loss, Marlene. Your story breaks my heart. Over 200,000 innocents died by gas at "Kulmhof". One group of 300 children were marched by the Gestapo HQ in "Lippstadt" to the site of the atrocities and gassed in a single day. I am just in the process of writing a book about Chelmno and the Lodz Ghetto with a very experienced Holocaust researcher and writer in Berlin. The research is still ongoing, and has taken a long time. I am so so disgusted!

However, to your question, it appears that the Gas Trucks were neither VW or Ford. They were a "remodel" of a then US 3 ton Truck (OEM unknown), and there were many more in those vans. I'll spare you the details. I'm sure Miller has his wet dreams about those vans. Now that was nasty! But possibly accurate.

Expand full comment

Bruce…ohhh…I am very interested in the book you are writing! Thank you for the information on the gas trucks because I had assumed Volkswagen & Ford were so complicit in everything else. By the way, my father’s town of Borslav in Poland, is now in the Ukraine.

Expand full comment

Honoring truthfulness and engagement in good faith would help.

Expand full comment

There are so many odious things in our past. We cannot become a better country until we take ownership and make amends.

Expand full comment

Like in an airline crash, we need to study our mistakes and modify what we do in order to avoid a reoccurrence.

Expand full comment

Did we ever pay reparations to those Americans we interned in Idaho during WW2?

Expand full comment

How about reparations to African Americans also?

Expand full comment

Thanks for pointing that out! I had no idea reparations were paid. Also the amount paid ($22,000) was a pittance.

Expand full comment

Maybe so, but we've never gotten even that far with reparations for people whose ancestors were brought here as slaves. And, of course, there's the asymmetry of our not penalizing German-Americans while abusing Japanese citizens.

Expand full comment

Yep, I had a similar thought regarding reparations that are needed. But good luck in finding it in this sea of comments!

Expand full comment

Makes me think, Who else do we owe?

Expand full comment

So true, hey sailor.

Expand full comment

And not just with words. (Thoughts and prayers!)

Expand full comment

Stephen Miller. Jared Kushner. Benyamin Netanyahu. Et al

As an American Jew and Zionist born in the shadow of the Holocaust, I've spent my life rejecting false equivalencies. American racism, Nazism, Fascism, Stalinism, Apartheid. To understand each instance of human wreckage, their differences are more significant than their similarities. But with the criminal Netanyahu regime the similarities to Nazism are too overwhelming to set aside. Jewish extremists want a Palestine free of Palestinians, to have lebensraum for Jewish settlers. Going through the Hell of the Holocaust taught some people the wrong lesson. This does not represent all Israelis anymore than MAGA represents all Americans.

Some will claim that this was always the goal of Zionism, but they are wrong. And largely ignorant of the historic tensions within Zionism, the current tensions in Israel, and the continuing struggle of the Zionist and Israeli Left. This is what Zionism looks like in the hands of Jewish and Evangelical religious extremists. Who are also supporting/advising arriviste tyrant wannabe Trump. And unless we use our votes to reelect Biden, it will happen here.

In 1946, 13 year old Ruth Bader (Ginsburg) wrote in her synagogue newsletter "We must never forget the horrors which our brethren were subjected to in Bergen-Belsen and other Nazi concentration camps. Then, too, we must try hard to understand that for righteous people hate and prejudice are neither good occupations nor fit companions."

It is the same synagogue I grew up in, and with the same rabbi. We would not recognize the Judaism of Miller, Kushner, Netanyahu et al, anymore than Muslims would recognize the Islam of the Taliban or Isis, or Hindus would recognize the Hinduism of Mohdi's Bharatiya Janata Party.

http://www.emjc.org/13-year-old-ruth-bader-ginsburgs-essay-1946-emjc-bulletin/

Expand full comment

I Come From There

Poem by Mahmoud Darwish

I come from there and I have memories

Born as mortals are, I have a mother

And a house with many windows,

I have brothers, friends,

And a prison cell with a cold window.

Mine is the wave, snatched by sea-gulls,

I have my own view,

And an extra blade of grass.

Mine is the moon at the far edge of the words,

And the bounty of birds,

And the immortal olive tree.

I walked this land before the swords

Turned its living body into a laden table.

I come from there. I render the sky unto her mother

When the sky weeps for her mother.

And I weep to make myself known

To a returning cloud.

I learnt all the words worthy of the court of blood

So that I could break the rule.

I learnt all the words and broke them up

To make a single word: Homeland.....

Mahmoud Darwish (Arabic: محمود درويش‎) (13 March 1941 – 9 August 2008) was a Palestinian poet and author who won numerous awards for his literary output and was regarded as the Palestinian national poet. In his work, Palestine became a metaphor for the loss of Eden, birth and resurrection, and the anguish of dispossession and exile. He has been described as incarnating and reflecting "the tradition of the political poet in Islam, the man of action whose action is poetry". (PoemHunter) See link below.

https://www.poemhunter.com/

Expand full comment

Poetry melts away the fat.

Expand full comment

Thank you, Fern.

Expand full comment

Thank you reading the poem, doc. Mahmoud Darwish's poetry and

prose live, although he passed away in 2008. It will be my reward to

bring his work to us again.

Expand full comment

Dear lin, unfortunately, your very good comments do not hold historically. I say this not to correct you, but to remind you that people with pain and hate in their hearts have done wrong, even Jews of not so long ago, not just current examples. Remember the Nakba of 1948. The very Zionists, interned and massacred by the Nazi's until just 3 years previously, threw peaceful, poor farmers off their lands to create their own Lebensraum, and they continue to do so to this day. There is just no historical rationale to what OUR people will do to OTHERS. That makes me weep and prepared to expect the worst from any fascist group.

Expand full comment

"My wing is ready for flight,

I would like to turn back

If I stayed timeless time,

I would have little luck.

Mein Flügel ist zum Schwung bereit,

ich kehrte gern zurück,

denn blieb ich auch lebendige Zeit,

ich hätte wenig Glück.

- Gerherd Scholem,

‘Gruss vom Angelus’

A Klee painting named ‘Angelus Novus’ shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such a violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress. "

- Walter Benjamin

To say. These things do not happen in a vacuum. And it is facile/futile to tease out one thread and say I have got hold of the truth, forsake all others. That may be a national/notional history. It is not history. Which must be a coming to consensus through reasoned debate of the evidence. For now, that must wait. Current events demand all our attention and resources.

This ends at the negotiating table. No matter how many bodies must be climbed over to get there. And once there, it cannot be a weighing and measuring of wreckage piled on wreckage. Peace must be forward looking - what must we do now. After two sovereign geographically autonomous states are established. Then will be the time for truth and reconciliation. And even then.

What you wrote is fraught and is freighted. An exercise in emotionalism presented as historical analysis and ethical judgement. It is not helpful when there is hard work to be done.

Expand full comment

Dear lin, beautifully quoted, and quite the picture painted, talk about emotionalism. I beg to differ on your last comment: “It is not helpful when there is hard work to be done." Unfortunately, both sides are looking at that event as they DON'T sit at the table. It would be very "helpful" to take the pasts (plural) into account if they would work on the future, because the past is what blocks us from the new, and action. I have asked both sides now, and listened. Neither wants the two state solution, even though it is probably the right one. In making my comment, I felt it unnecessary to give fact to each and every (or even multiple) occurrence of the tragedy, I wasn't attempting to rewrite my Doctoral Thesis in this forum.

Expand full comment

Neither belligerent has a strategy for ending hostilities. Neither has been willing to admit weariness of blood running through the streets. Or weariness enough. But others have.

There are many at negotiating tables as we write.

I don't know which one you may be sitting at, with whom, or what status it may have.

"The US has proposed a draft resolution at the UN Security Council which calls for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza. It has also warned Israel against invading the overcrowded city of Rafah. The US has previously avoided the word "ceasefire" during UN votes on the war, but President Joe Biden has made similar comments....Talks will begin on the US draft this week, but it is not clear when or if the proposal might be put to a vote. It is the first time the US has called for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza at the UN, having vetoed previous resolutions using the word."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68346027

Expand full comment

Lin and Bruce, your offerings here have taken the trauma of Israel/Gaza to a deeper level and opened the wounds in a visceral way. Thank you for the vulnerability of showing us all the knife-edge of this hellish impasse. May you both retain the truth you hold.

Expand full comment

I wish the Negotiators all the luck and patients and success in the world lin. May there be a good solution.

Expand full comment

Unfortunately:

US Vetoes UN Security Council Resolution Urging Gaza Cease-Fire

US plans separate resolution on Rafah attack, hostage release

Text proposed by Algeria approved by 13 of 15 UNSC members

Expand full comment

It was known that the US would veto the Algerian proposal.You left out why it was vetoed and that the US proposal will also call for a ceasefire.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 19 (Reuters) - The United States has proposed a rival draft United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a temporary ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war and opposing a major ground offensive by its ally Israel in Rafah, according to the text seen by Reuters.

The move comes after the U.S. signaled it would veto on Tuesday an Algerian-drafted resolution — demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire — over concerns it could jeopardize talks between the U.S., Egypt, Israel and Qatar that seek to broker a pause in the war and the release of hostages held by Hamas.

Expand full comment

Our island has been through hurricanes where frigate birds and other ones too have clutched their wings,hurled downwind, and houses have been destroyed. Years go by; skies are emptier and homes are slowly rebuilt.

Storms in our human nature are like these hurricanes, maybe.

Expand full comment

We are hardwired for metaphor.

Expand full comment

Thank you.

Expand full comment

Every damn day it’s a new horror. How is there a single soul that will vote for him?

Expand full comment

Some people are drawn to, even worship sociopathic bullies in ever era and culture. It seem to be our species' tragic flaw. The choices we make as a society seem to bias the acceptance of predatory urges one way or the other.

Expand full comment

I have no doubt that Trump plans to have concentration camps for anyone he or his minions consider to be un-American--which would be pretty much anyone who opposes him.

Expand full comment

We outnumber him, we outnumber them.

Expand full comment

Thanks to Alvin and Jack, perhaps Fani as well, Trump is going to learn a lot about the internal workings of "internment camps"!

Expand full comment

Fani has been hobbled by a very Trumpian device. May justice prevail.

Expand full comment

I believe this also. Trump would arrest and intern his political opponents, ordinary people who criticize him on line, journalists and columnists who write pieces critical of him, and just about everyone else who doesn’t support him.

Expand full comment

For all that this history is shameful, I am better for knowing about it. Much of your history lessons to us are completely -or for the most part - new to me. We have a huge fight ahead of us to resoundingly reject MAGA. You give us the knowledge we need to press our case forward. Thank you, again.

Expand full comment

Lovely post by Heather tonight, and if I may so so, I appreciate her picking up on my comments from yesterday about Executive Order 9066, whether intentionally or otherwise.

In reading her piece tonight, I was struck by the irony of President Ford's 1976 proclamation. In the Presidential election later that year, his running mate was Senator Bob Dole, well known for suffering and surviving serious wounds from his service during WWII in Italy. One of his close friends in the US Senate, sitting across the aisle from him for many years, was Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, who lost his right arm in WWII combat in Italy as well. Dole and Inouye had become friends years earlier in the military hospital after being shipped back to the States.

While the Army initially refused to allow him to join in the wake of Pearl Harbor, solely because he was of Japanese ancestry, Inouye persevered and ultimately joined the very same 442nd Regiment. It was while serving with them, that he lost his right arm in gruesome combat serving a Country that he loved, while many of his fellow Japanese Americans were interned back home.

This is a quality of nobility that is simply peerless.

Expand full comment

The 442nd was one of the hardest fighting regiments in World War II and their men took many casualties.

Expand full comment

Thank you Heather, as Ex. Order 9066 is not to be forgotten. My Mother-in-law was photographed at Heart Mt. Wyoming for Life Magazine, making Ikebana from colored tissue paper and windblown twigs. We are getting her settled in to a very good assisted living facility after living with us since Covid started. It is ironic that only yesterday, while going through her file cabinets as we were getting ready to sell her house to pay for her care, we came accross a large US government manilla envelope with all the documents and paperwork for the $20.000 reparation payment. Hardly compensation for losing the successful family buisines in downtown Los Angeles and graduating from highschool while living in a freezing, uninsulated tarpaper shack, fenced in with a high wall with machine gun towers at the corners.

Expand full comment

I am so sorry this happened, Ransom. These evil acts bring tears to my eyes and it makes me ashamed of things I knew nothing about. We cannot let these atrocities be repeated.

Expand full comment

Not knowing where you live, I would suggest stopping at Manzanar, North of Bishop on Hwy 395 on the Eastern side of the Sierras. The museum is worth wandering through, as well as what is left of the camp itself. The Japanes American Museam in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles has a floor dedicated to the camps and and has recreated the tarpaper shacks themselves.The documentation of the people and photographs show it all clearly.

Expand full comment

Many of that generation still will not talk of that experience. Cristine Iwasa's story a bit earlier, is every bit as heart wrenching.

Expand full comment

This is heartbreaking to hear about. Kindness and hugs to your mother and your family.

Expand full comment

Of course Texas will be the staging area. They are perfectly set up for it. They already have a governor & legislature more than willing to go along with whatever trump & his cronies want. They'll welcome troops from other Red States to help "control" all the illegals.

I wonder what all the folks that have immigrants who tend their yards or watch their children or clean their homes will do when their employees just disappear & they'll have to find someone else to do the work.

And, I guess republicans will be more than happy to hire white Americans to pick strawberries, harvest our produce, spray the insect & weed repellents to protect the crops. Or the milkers who help with milk production, the white folks that will gladly work in the slaughter houses or meat packing facilities. Maybe they'll hire some rich kids to clean hotel rooms or work in restaurants.

So, the Maga republicans look forward to America with detention camps & no immigrants. It will give all those white folks plenty of jobs! That will solve all the problems in the US won't it?

Oh, wait!!!! Most white folks won't do those jobs!

Expand full comment

The real history is that there has always been a circular pattern of people from Mexico who come from there to work harvesting crops and do other jobs, then return to Mexico to be with their families. Employers feel free to treat them like indentured servants. It was only once they made it harder for Mexican citizens to come to the U.S. that families started coming to the U.S. as well. Abbott’s own wife is of Mexican-American heritage, but Abbott and his lieutenant governor seem to think they can run their own foreign policy independent of the Federal government.

Expand full comment