Peace is Easy to Break, Hard to Restore

 

If, on November 6, 2024, at 1 a.m Easter Standard Time Donald Trump had not won the election, our country would have been sliding toward civil war.  

The best predictor of a successful coup d'etat is a failed coup attempt.  If he had lost, Trump would have thrown the country into chaos. This time he would not make the mistakes he did the last time. He would be assured that the Republican-majority government in most of the swing states would sow enough doubt to throw the election into the House where, by the Constitutional rules, Trump has the advantage.  

Instead we have peace.  Trump won so he has no reason to lie about the results.  More importantly, he is effectively endorsing the election system--because it elected him.  

On the one hand, we will be governed by an old authoritarian wannabe on January 20, 2025.  

On the other hand, we did not fall into civil strife that could easily have led to violence beyond the control of any government.  

Once broken, peace is hard to restore, so I am glad we have peace.

I am also hopeful. Once Trump is gone--he is almost 80--his successor will not have flag-waving worshippers.  His successor will be just another politician to be criticized, doubted, and attacked. The Trump phenomena will not be repeated by JD Vance or Trump Jr. or Tucker Carlson.  Nobody will wave Tucker flags. 

It may not be for long.  But for now we have peace. I am thankful.

No Canvassers for Trump

 

At all the houses I canvassed, I saw one piece of Trump literature

Several times when I canvassed on weekends, I ran into other canvassers.  They were always Democrats.  Usually, I was canvassing for a Congressional or State candidate and the other canvasser was out for Harris-Walz.  We made sure to avoid overlap so as not to knock on the same door twice in five minutes.  

But I never ran into a Trump canvasser.  In fact, I saw only one piece of Trump literature on a porch the whole time I canvassed.  In some neighborhoods, I would see several pieces of literature left under a mat or near a door I was canvassing.  The literature could be for Harris-Walz or other candidates, but it was there.  

I listened to Holly Otterbein, a Pennsylvania political reporter talk about strife within the PA Republican Party over canvassing.  She said the party traditional organized canvassing, but the national party had hired Elon Musk to control the canvassing and it was not getting done.  That certainly agreed with what I saw. No literature. No canvassers.  

If Harris-Walz win Pennsylvania that lack of canvassing may be a factor.  I can only hope.

Who is the Antichrist? A 2,000-Year Fantasy Journey

 

Meet the Antichrist: 

In the Bad-Theology (Burn-at-the-stake Heresy) Novel Series Titled Left Behind 

the Antichrist is the Secretary General of the United Nations. Currently Antonio Gutierrez. 

When Trump held his Nazi-revival meeting at Madison Square Garden last week, one of the vile warm-up acts called Vice President Kamala Harris the Antichrist.  

Unlike Trump and the majority of his followers I have actually read the Christian Scriptures--in the language they were written in. If you haven't you may not know that the Antichrist is mentioned just twice in the entire 27 books that comprise the Christian Scriptures.  Both mentions are the letters the Apostle John sent to new Churches during his lifetime.  In another letter (2 Thessalonians) there is a reference to a "man of lawlessness" and the "beast" of Revelation that are taken to be the Antichrist, but the references are ambiguous.  

More importantly, the prefix anti in Greek has multiple meanings.  In can mean against or in opposition it can also mean equality or correspondence as in antitype.

But if we take Antichrist as in opposition to Christ, the context of both letters is to men acting against the Church at the time the letters were written. 

But for those besotted with prophecy, identifying the Antichrist has been a source of endless vain speculation for two millennia. Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins wrote the bestselling Christian-market novel series in history in the 1990s turning a very bad interpretation of Bible prophecy into the Left Behind novels.  

In the first of the seven novels the Antichrist is identified as the Secretary General of United Nations.  Maybe the LaHaye and Jenkins had Kofi Annan in mind or Boutros Boutros Ghali.  They did not get their supervillain from the actual citations in 1 John or 2 John.  They were using the Beast of Revelation.  

Novelists can and do "make shit up" but their readers took as "gospel" their wacky reading of Christian Scripture.  If you wonder how Donald Trump became King Cyrus of Persia in the minds of prophecy obsessed Christians, the sales of Left Behind (upwards of 50 million copies) shows a very plausible path.

Neither Vice President Kamala Harris nor the Secretary General of the United Nations is anything like the actual references to the Antichrist in the letters of  John. The best candidate for that office in modern America is the proud commandment breaker Donald Trump.   

Canvassing in Monoculture Neighborhoods

 

Multifamily homes I canvassed were multicultural.  Every sort of American lives there. 

But when I canvassed neighborhoods with single-family homes with two-car garages, the demographics were very different. As I mentioned in other posts I get the name, age and party affiliation of the voter.  In multifamily homes I often had the names of both members of a couple, or even a couple plus an older parent or adult child.  

But in single-family suburban homes, I often had just one name, almost always a women.  And if someone answered the door, it was often a man of about the same age. Which means that man was not a Democrat.  Assuming he was a voter, he was Republican or a Republican-leaning Independent.  

I asked for the voter by name. She was "not available." I would say I was asking her to vote for the candidate.  The guy said he would tell her, or say "We're not interested."  Door shuts.

The age of the voter and the couple was often 40s to 50s.  Kids were often hovering around the parent who answered the door.  While the couples in these houses were mostly white, there was one interesting exception.

It was a neighborhood of single-family houses, all built since 2021 on two parallel streets named for Ivy League colleges. All of the families on the first street were South Asian.  All of them.  The voter lists had three or four generations of voters. On the porch were shoes of kids and adults.  

I skipped three houses, which means they were probably Republicans--the entire family. But the shoes and the Hindu blessings on the doors said they were South Asian also.

On the second street it was mostly South Asian families plus a few Black and East Asian families. 

Canvassing is fascinating just for the demographics. 

Canvassing Shows Just How Multicultural South Central Pennsylvania Neighborhoods Are

 

In suburban York, Lancaster, Harrisburg and Philadelphia, I have canvassed in neighborhoods with multi-unit new homes like the one in the photo above.  I did not want to take a picture where I canvassed. This is from Google. 

The names in my canvassing app show just how many races and ethnicities live next to each other.  Often these multi-unit dwellings have eight homes per building.  In that building are White, Black and Hispanic families; east, west and south Asian families; and families from Africa and the Caribbean.  

Since I only canvass homes with Democratic or Independent voters, I know which homes vote Republican because I walk past them. Many of these families are single party households--which is also interesting because of their age demographics.  The residents of these neighborhoods are mostly in their late 20s to early 40s or past retirement age.  The residents are either in their first home or a post-retirement down-sizing home. 

A woman in her 30s I spoke to in suburban York county told me she and her husband were voting in person and would be voting a straight democratic ticket.  She said the rules of the development don't allow yard signs which is why she did not have a Harris sign out front.  She thought it was for the best, because she didn't want to see Trump signs.  When there are signs, they are often in opposition to neighbors as I noted here.

As I wrote earlier, these neighborhoods are very quiet--much more quiet that my own neighborhood. Which means there is no overt politic strife. In rural and Urban Pennsylvania, there are certainly areas that are more monocultural, but in the  multi-unit housing suburban neighborhoods I have been walking in, America is very multi-cultural.

The more upscale, large single-family houses are different. I'll write about them next. 

Hannah Arendt Center Conference 2024: Tribalism and Cosmopolitanism, 1st Morning

 

On October 17 and 18 the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College held its annual conference. This year's topic was Tribalism and Cosmopolitanism: How Can We Imagine a Pluralist Politics? 

Hannah Arendt Center Founder and Academic Director Roger Berkowitz introduced the topic of the conference. He began with his own tribal connections: his family, his Jewish faith, and other close-knit groups. As a cosmopolitan he has "passport stamps from many countries" where he has friends and family and colleagues in addition to writing books and articles and being part of intellectual communities: a cosmopolitan with many tribes.

He then talked about the conflict between those committed to a cosmopolitan view of the world and those who see humans through a tribal lens.  I would try to summarize, but the opening speech of the conference is the latest episode of the Reading Hannah Arendt podcast so anyone so inclined can listen to the Roger's opening remarks.

The first speaker was Sebastian Junger, like Berkowitz, embodies the title of the conference.  

As a cosmopolitan, he has written seven books, earning #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list, and numerous articles earning a National Magazine Award and a Peabody Award and a Peabody Award.  His documentary film Restrepo (with co-director Tim Hetherington) won a Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and was nominated for an Academy Award.

But the central subject of his writing is tribalism. His book Tribe explores the lure of tribalism and its place in modern life. Junger said the definition of a tribe is "What happens to you happens to me."  The willingness to die for fellow tribe member is another mark of a tribe.   

War and the film Restrepo show the life of an Army company defending the most exposed outpost in the Korengal Valley of Afghanistan. Soldiers form a tribe. In Restrepo one of the soldiers says that guys who hate each other's guts would risk their lives for each other. 

I saw Restrepo just after returning from a year's deployment to Iraq in 2010.  I have not seen a better or more candid documentary of war, any war, than Restrepo. 

Just after the conference I read Junger's book The Perfect Storm the story of the commercial fishing boat Andrea Gail lost with all hands in a terrible storm in 1991.  Junger describes the tribe of the people who fish for a living and the dangers they face.  We also see the rescue services of the Coast Guard and the Air National Guard saving the lives of doomed boats in the terrible storm. We also learn about the rescuers lost and terribly injured during the rescues. The end of the book follows those dealing with the loss of loved ones in that terrible storm.  War and disaster always have this long tail of family and communal suffering. Junger shows us the many struggles of thos left behind.

I will have to leave the rest of the conference for another post.  This post is already very long and long after the event.

The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger: The story of a terrible storm and tragedy at sea.

 

The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea by Sebastian Junger is a real page-turner story about a Gloucester-based fishing boat, the Andrea Gail, that disappeared in a historic storm in late October in 1991. There were no survivors. There was no wreckage except a few fuel drums found on the sea long after the Andrea Gail disappeared.  

Junger tells the story of the disaster from the recollections of the crew members of ships that survived the storm, from viewpoint the survivors of an ill-fated rescue attempt of another boat in the same storm, and from the perspective of the families of the survivors.  

The book opens introducing the members of the crew of the Andrea Gail and their families and friends.  Junger shows us the life of a fisherman. Swordfish boats like the Andrea Gail could make a lot of money for their crews and money was the reason most of the men took the risk of fishing.  

We learn how dangerous fishing for swordfish can be. The line used to catch the fish goes out with thousands of hooks, baited just before they enter the water.  These hooks can snag and drag a fisherman right off the boat and into the sea when the line run over the side, and is equally dangerous when the line is pulled back on board--with or without many big, angry swordfish on the line.

Junger explains the physics of flipping and sinking a boat in a storm. He also explains how differences in the placement of pilot house and other factors could affect the way the ship weathers storms.  In addition to the physics of boats, we learn about the formation of waves and the storms that toss the waves higher and higher.

As the Perfect Storm develops in the area where the Andrea Gail is lost, Junger shows how search and rescue works along the US and Canadian coasts.  The US Guard works with Air National Guard and Navy units to rescue crew members of boats in distress.  I learned a lot about how the services coordinate their different capabilities depending on the distance and scale of the disaster.  The US and Canada coordinate with each other in the disasters that involve the international waters of both countries.

In the aftermath of the storm, the families grieve and struggle with the loss of the crew of the Andrea Gail as well as the Air Force pararescue swimmer lost when a rescue helicopter went down.  

Although I've never been out to sea further than a fishing boat near Boston harbor, I am fascinated with sailing ships.  I've read all of Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander novels and Ian Toll's histories of the war in the Pacific theater of World War II. The Perfect Storm gave me a new perspective on just how dangerous life on the sea can be, even without the ships involved firing cannons at each other.

For anyone interested in the life of the crews of fishing boats, or of fishing towns like Gloucester, Mass., or the physics of waves, ships and the weather, this book has excellent explanations wrapped in a compelling story. 

------

In 2012 Victoria Hislop of The Independent (UK) began her review of the book with the same enthusiasm I felt: 

I learned two things while I was reading this book. First, that true stories can be more exciting and extraordinary than fictional ones. And second, that the best books are the ones where you are glued to your seat. This is how it was with The Perfect Storm.

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A passage on drowning that made my own terror of death in the water vivid, while explaining precisely how our bodies react as death approaches:

"The instinct not to breathe underwater is so strong that it overcomes the agony of running out of air. No matter how desperate the drowning person is, he doesn't inhale until he's on the verge of losing consciousness. At that point there's so much carbon dioxide in the blood, and so little oxygen, that chemical sensors in the brain trigger an involuntary breath whether he's underwater or not. That is called the "break point"; laboratory experiments have shown the break point to come after eighty-seven seconds. It's a sort of neurological optimism, as if the body were saying, Holding our breath is killing us, and breathing in might not kill us, so we might as well breathe in...Until the break point, a drowning person is said to be undergoing "voluntary apnea," choosing not to breathe. Lack of oxygen to the brain causes a sensation of darkness closing in from all sides, as in a camera aperture stopping down. The panic of a drowning person is mixed with an odd incredulity that this is actually happening. Having never done it before, the body--and the mind--do not know how to die gracefully. The process is filled with desperation and awkwardness. 'So this is drowning,' a drowning person might think. 'So this is how my life finally ends.'"