“We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of the few, but we can’t have both.” Justice Louis Brandeis
Born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Jewish immigrants from Prague, Bohemia (now the capitol of the Czech Republic), Brandeis, known as the “People’s Lawyer,” served on the Supreme Court for 23 years beginning in 1916. In the course of a distinguished legal career, he championed the rights of workers, social justice, freedom of speech, and the right to privacy.
I learned about Ben Fountain in a New York Review of Books essay by Adam Hochschild entitled “American Deviltry.” Best known for the novel “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” (2012), Fountain has written “Beautiful Country Burn Again: Democracy, Rebellion, and Revolution.” The first half is his reportage of the tragic 2016 election, filled with telling character studies. Here’s Fountain’s take on slimy Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who, when bettered in a debate with Beto O’Rourke, “could only smile with a pants-around-the-ankle sort of squinch to his face.” Fountain continues:
[Cruz speaks] in urgent, breathy tones of preacher sanctimony, his voice dropping as it nears the end of every thought, digging for the tremble, the hushed vibrato of ultimate virtue. You’d think he gargles twice a day with a cocktail of high-fructose corn syrup and holy-roller snake oil. . . . There’s a schlumpy fleshiness to him, a blurring of definition in his face and neck, the little knob of his chin dangling like a boiled quail egg. His skin reads soft, smooth, the skin if an avid indoorsman.
“American Deviltry” then analyzes the obscene transfer of wealth to the super-rich, resumed during the 1980s after a half-century of relatively progressive times but not really questioned under Democratic presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and greatly accelerated under Trump.
Chris and Nancy Brown look over remains of their home in Paradise, CA; photo by Josh Edelson
Victims of the tragic California fires received scant sympathy from our clueless leader, who remains a climate change denier and in his proposed 2018 budget recommended cutting $300 million from the forest service’s wildfire fighting programs. Blaming state officials for mismanagement, he claimed they should take their cue from Finland, a welfare state whose pine forests are nothing like the areas ablaze in the Golden State and yield needles rather than leaves. Internet postings of Finns ridiculing Trump by raking pine needles have gone viral. With rain forecast, there’s now a threat of massive flooding, with the parched fire zones deprived of underbrush that could absorb the water.
Four people died after a man shot E.R. physician Tamara O’Neal, who had broken off her engagement to him, then ran inside Chicago’s Mercy Hospital and fatally shot pharmacy resident Dayna Less, who was exiting the elevator at the time. In a subsequent shoot-out, the man took police officer Samuel Jimenez’s life before evidently taking his own. Both women were from Northwest Indiana. Deeply religious and idealistic, O’Neal grew up outside LaPorte, while Less was a Lake Central grad. Dr. John Purakal said of Tamara: “I knew her, trained with her, saved lives with her and tonight, tried to save her life. Tonight, I broke down in front of my coworkers when we lost her, and tonight I held hands with her mother in prayer. Tonight, we lost a beautiful, resilient, passionate doc. Keep singing, TO.” Less was engaged to her high school sweetheart and worked for a time in Kenya. Music teach Dennis Barunica wrote: “Dayna Less was in the first Serbian group I taught. She learned brac and cello, so that tells you how talented and into it she was. We would go over her house with whoever could make it and just play until our fingers were sore, then her mom, Teena, would make us all the palacinke we could eat and send me home with some. Dayna was one who made teaching easy and fun. Only 25 and gone.”
Daniel Day-Lewis and Emma Stone starred in the film “In the Name of the Father,” about the Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven, two Irish groups convicted of playing a role in the 1974 Guildford Pub bombings. Even though an IRA terrorist confessed to carrying out the deed, authorities kept that information from the defense team until the confession was unearthed and the victims were freed after serving over 15 years in prison. Paul Hill, one of the Guildford Four, subsequently married Robert F. Kennedy’s daughter Courtney.
Cynthia Shank, front center, with producers and next to brother Rudy Valdez
The HBO documentary “The Sentence” unveiled another case of injustice. Due to draconian mandatory sentencing laws Cynthia Shanks, received a 15-year sentence for conspiracy five years after her onetime boyfriend was murdered for dealing drugs, even though she had taken no active part in his crimes. Meanwhile she had married and was raising three young daughters. Cynthia served nine years until granted clemency during Obama’s last days in the White House, one of just 1,600 out of 33,000 applicant whose cases had merit. Had her younger brother Rudy Valdez not brought the injustice to light with his documentary, she might still be incarcerated.
I enjoy reading your blog. You are timely with your comments.
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