What If Trump Wins? Would You Hide A Latino Family Or Muslim Refugees In Your House Once The Deportations Begin?

In today's NY Times Nick Kristof asked his readers whether they would have hidden a Jew from the Nazis. In the 1970s I lived in Amsterdam for nearly 4 years and passed the Anne Frank Huis-- now a museum-- on the Prinsegracht a few times a week. It was vaguely, a little circuitously, between my apartment on the Overtoom and my job at the meditation center on Prins Hendrikkade. It was built in 1635. I thought about the question Kristof asked today very frequently back then. More recently though, I sometimes try to imagine what I would do if President Trumpf was having Latinos rounded up by his special deportation politzei. I have plenty of room in my for a family. But it might be really dangerous. Even if President Trumpf didn't order people who hid Latinos arrested, I bet they'd confiscate the houses immediately. And those people next door... would they snitch?

Kristof wrote of torture and death. But it would be 2017 before the round-ups begin; didn't he say his first week in office or something like that? And torture? This is a civilized country. Would Trumpf torture people? Would I be brave enough? Well, obviously if it was someone I knew... one of my friends, or even my housekeeper and her family, I would ask them if they needed a hiding place.

Down at the bottom is the trailer for Defying the Nazis, a new Ken Burns documentary that will air on PBS Tuesday evening. The grandson of the protagonists, a couple who saved Jews from Nazis, noted the parallels between what his grandparents, Martha and Waitstill Sharp, faced and what we're facing today with the Syrian refugee crisis. "The vitriol in public speech, the xenophobia, the accusing of Muslims of all of our problems-- these are similar to the anti-Semitism of the 1930s and ’40s." I live in L.A.; there are Muslims around, even a few I know. But it's not like the Latino population. I think Latinos are the biggest population group in L.A.

The Sharps’ story is a reminder that in the last great refugee crisis, in the 1930s and ’40s, the United States denied visas to most Jews. We feared the economic burden and worried that their ranks might include spies. It was the Nazis who committed genocide, but the U.S. and other countries also bear moral responsibility for refusing to help desperate people.

That’s a thought world leaders should reflect on as they gather in New York to discuss today’s refugee crisis-- and they might find inspiration from those like the Sharps who saw the humanity in refugees and are today honored because of it.

Take Poland, where some Poles responded to Nazi occupation by murdering Jews, while the Polish resistance (including, I’m proud to say, my father’s family) fought back and tried to wake the world’s conscience. One Pole, Witold Pilecki, sneaked into Auschwitz to gather intelligence and alert the world to what was happening.

Likewise, a Polish farmer named Jozef Ulma and his wife, Wiktoria, sheltered desperate members of two Jewish families in their house. The Ulmas had six small children and every reason to be cautious, but they instead showed compassion.

Someone reported them, and the Gestapo raided the Ulmas’ farmhouse. The Nazis first shot the Jews dead, and then took retribution by executing not just Jozef and Wiktoria (who was seven months pregnant) but also all their children. The entire family was massacred.

Trump and his special deportation politzei would never do that, right? This is America. We don't have that kind of thing here. Right?

This afternoon, Digby penned a letter to Blue America members that you may not have seen if you're not a member. She warned that it's just about 50 days from November... when we as a country decide our fate. "There is," she warned, "a very real possibility that this country is going to elect a white supremacist, nationalist demagogue as president of the United States. Yes, it makes no sense. One would think it's impossible. But after watching the media shit show unfold daily, it’s quite obvious that it can happen here. The polls right now are very, very tight."

If it does happen here, on the morning of November 9th we will wake up to a different world. Allies will understand they need to distance themselves from the U.S. and rivals will feel emboldened. Trump's promise of a massive military buildup will be met by an equal build-up all around the planet. Other nations will logically see that the world's only superpower has gone rogue and the post war security regime that we have known for 60 years will probably fall apart all at once.

Even those of us who believe we should find a way to end the American imperial project cannot believe it is a good idea for it to end in chaos at the hands of a torture loving nationalist who believes that "disrespect" demands military action.

Then there's The Wall, "Operation Wetback" Redux, banning of Muslims,"law and order" and more on top of his standard GOP policy atrocities, including plans to enact a massive tax cut on the wealthy and end virtually all government regulations, the list of which reads like a lobbyist's letter to Santa. He even proposed to end all food safety regulations.

And yes, he's a climate change denier and will reject the Paris Climate accords and anything else that seeks to deal with a problem he believes is a hoax made up by China. And of course we know he is a documented racist, misogynist, nativist, xenophobic, anti-semite which is what millions of his most enthusiastic backers like best about him.  That's just for starters.

If you haven't seen the Keith Olbermann video listing all the Trump atrocities, take a few minutes. It will sober you right up:



And yet, with all that, right now he is tied with the mainstream, center left Democratic candidate who is running for President Obama's third term and has been endorsed by people as diverse as Elizabeth Warren to Warren Buffet and Brent Scowcroft. That is insane.

Unfortunately, we have a problem within our own ranks: One third of voters 18-29 are planning to vote third party and that could easily make the difference.

Bernie Sanders has something to say about that:

"Look, I was a third-party candidate. I began my career running as a third party, getting 2 percent and then 1 percent. I'm the longest serving independent in the history of the U.S. Congress, but I think that before you cast a protest vote, because [Hillary] Clinton or Trump will be president, think hard about it. This is not a governor's race. It's not a state legislative race. This is the presidency of the United States."

"If you are a working person, do you really think that billionaires need a large tax break? Which is what Trump is proposing. If you are an ordinary American who listens to science, do you think its a good idea that the President of the United States rejects science and says that climate change is a hoax? I think that if you look at the issues—raising minimum wage, building infrastructure, expanding healthcare-- Clinton, by far, is the superior candidate."

It probably won't matter to the presidential race in big blue states if people vote third party. But there's a good reason not to. The Democratic platform Sanders fought for is also on the ballot. Clinton has not repudiated it or run from it and that is to her credit. If a majority of the country votes against her there are plenty of people in the media and both parties who will blame that platform and her embrace of progressive policies for the loss. The protest may not register the way people want it to. As Bernie says:

"Let us elect Hillary Clinton as president and that day after let us mobilize millions of people around the progressive agenda which was passed in the Democratic platform."

So, that's where we are right now today. Clinton is falling in the polls and Trump is rising. There's a very good chance we may wake up on November 9th in a different world if he pulls this off and progressives have the most to lose, especially our most vulnerable brothers and sisters. This isn't politics as usual, friends. This requires all hands on deck.

You can donate through Blue America's Clinton page here. And if you can't do that you can do phone banking from your home or canvas in your neighborhood. I urge all Blue America members to take this seriously and do whatever you can to help Hillary Clinton win this election.

The GOP Platform Takes Another Step Towards The Conservative Dream Of Selling Off The National Parks

Suggested reading for Cliven Bundy's pet congressman

In his seminal book, The Progressive Revolution: How The Best In America Came To Be, Mike Lux listed some of the achievements of the progressive movement in this country, achievements that often took years of struggle against conservative forces doggedly serving the interests of great wealth and entrenched, established power. "If you look at our country’s long history," he wrote, "from the days of the first stirrings of our revolutionary impulses against Britain to today, progressive leaders and progressive movements have moved this country forward in the face of bitter-- and frequently violent-- opposition from reactionaries and defenders of the status quo. Consider the major advances in American history:

• The American Revolution
• The Bill of Rights and the forging of a democracy
• Universal white male suffrage
• Public education
• The emancipation of the slaves
• The national park system
• Food safety
• The breakup of monopolies
• The Homestead Act
• Land grant universities
• Rural electrification
• Women’s suffrage
• The abolition of child labor
• The eight hour workday
• The minimum wage
• Social Security
• Civil rights for minorities and women
• Voting rights for minorities and the poor
• Cleaning up our air, our water, and toxic dump sites
• Consumer product safety
• Medicare and Medicaid

Every single one of those reforms, which are literally the reforms that made this country what it is today, was accomplished by the progressive movement standing up to the fierce opposition of conservative reactionaries who were trying to preserve their own power. American history is one long argument between progressivism and conservatism.

The striking thing about this long debate is how much the arguments that have occurred are repetitive over time, in terms of their rhetoric, constituencies, philosophy, and the values they represent. From generation to generation, the conservatives who oppose reform and progress have used the same kinds of arguments over and over again.

Notice what Mike has right between the progressive vs. conservative battle to emancipate the slaves and the progressive vs. conservative battle to move towards guaranteeing food safety for consumers: the progressive vs. conservative battle to establish the great American national park system. Hard to believe but the conservatives fought against it like enraged animals. They-- conservatives, not Republicans, did back in the mid-1800s and they still are today. Watch simple-minded and vision-free Republican former congressman Cliff Stearns (FL) in the video below advocating "selling off some of our national parks."



The whole idea of national parks has been credited not to politicians but to artists and writers like George Catlin, James Fenimore Cooper, Henry David Thoreau, Thomas Cole and Frederick Edwin Church who helped transform the concept of the wilderness as a challenge that had to be overcome to an appreciation for unspoiled nature and spectacular natural areas. The first instance I could find of the political adoption of this attitude led to the create of Yosemite in 1864 when Congress passed a Abraham Lincoln signed a land transfer premised on the valley being "held for public use, resort, and recreation... inalienable for all time." Republicans, of course, have devolved tremendously since Lincoln and Cliff Stearns represents them far better than Abraham Lincoln. After Yosemite, Yellowstone and then Mackinaw were established as national parks but conservatives fail to see government's role in holding America's heritage in trust from one generation to the next. Although Stearns and his right-wing crackpot colleagues wanted to sell off Florida’s Everglades National Park, it is directly responsible for almost 2,400 jobs and $140 million a year in visitor spending. Nationally, the park system is responsible for over a quarter million jobs and $31 billion dollars annually. Conservatives imagine a string on Starbucks along the rim of the Grand Canyon would be more productive.

Richard Pombo (R-CA) was defeated in California for several reasons but his constituents were more than aware that he was advocating selling off the national parks to mining companies when they replaced the powerful committee chairman with political unknown Jerry McNerney in 2006. This year the Republican platform is demanding the federal government immediately start disposing of federal lands on behalf of the anti-park fanatics and the anti-government militias. The crackpot party's platform: "Congress shall immediately pass universal legislation providing a timely and orderly mechanism requiring the federal government to convey certain federally controlled public lands to the states. We call upon all national and state leaders and representatives to exert their utmost power and influence to urge the transfer of those lands identified." The Koch brothers paid a fortune to have that in the platform.

Most of the tea party maniacs and extremists who stand for selling the national parks are in deep red districts filled with brainwashed zombies who have no capacity for critical thought, like Rob Bishop who has Pombo's old job as House Natural Resource Committee chairman. His R+27 district gave Obama a mere 20% of the vote and Bishop could sell everyone's children and probably get reelected. Jason Chaffetz, another Utah nut case, is just as anti-national park-- and has an even redder district! They're not going anyplace. Nor are some of the other of the worst privatizers like Don Young (R-AK), Doug LaMalfa (R-CA), Paul Cook (R-CA)-- who's sprawling desert district includes Death Valley National Park, the Mojave Wilderness and National Preserve, Inyo National Forest, the White Mountains Wilderness area and is precariously close to both Yosemite, Sequoia National Park and the John Muir Wilderness-- Raul Labrador (R-ID) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ). But there is one who looks likely to lose his seat-- the Cliven Bundy-coddling congressman, Cresent Hardy.

Rep. Hardy is a member of FLAG [the Federal Land Action Group] and introduced H.R. 1445, which would prohibit the Department of the Interior from acquiring new public lands that would be managed by the National Parks Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, or the BLM, unless the federal budget is balanced. As a practical matter, the bill would prevent the U.S. government from being able to protect Civil War battlefields from development or guard against the building of private mansions on private inholdings within national parks.

Rep. Hardy introduced two amendments that would add loopholes to the Antiquities Act: H. Amdt. 597 to the most recent appropriations bill and H.  Amdt. 345 to the defense authorization bill. He has also cosponsored three other bills that would alter the Antiquities Act, as well as one bill focused on land seizure.

Unfortunately for Hardy, he's in a nice blue-leaning district and his opponent is an accomplished, popular and much-admired state senator, Ruben Kihuen, very much not an admirer of Hardy's vigilante friends and law-breaking fanatics. "For too long, big oil companies and polluters have determined our environmental policy in this country with an army of lobbyists.," he told Nevada voters. "We cannot afford to allow big polluters to put profits above the health of our families and our planet. We must act now to stop climate change and protect our environment for the generations that follow. Congressman Cresent Hardy seems to take his conservation cues, particularly on land management, from his good friend Cliven Bundy. That’s not the type of leadership Nevada needs. I am proud of my 94% lifetime rating from the Nevada Conservation League. In the legislature, I championed bills to increase the percentage of our state’s energy that is produced by renewable energy, and I have been a long-time advocate for protecting our public lands such as Basin and Range and Gold Butte." He promised to "be a voice for keeping our public lands in public hands and push for a funding increase in our land and water conservation fund to protect America’s great places." Please watch this incredible Ken Burns documentary on the national parks and consider making a contribution to Ruben's campaign by tapping on the thermometer on the right.

Ken Burns' Must Watch Speech, The Speech Of The Week-- And It's Only Monday

Film maker Ken Burns, who chronicles American history and culture, called out Trump, Trumpism and his enablers during a commencement speech at Stanford Sunday, referring to the Republican presidential nominee as "a charlatan, a naked emperor, a bullying, infantile man" without once uttering Trump's ugly name.

For 216 years, our elections, though bitterly contested, had featured the philosophies and characters of candidates who were clearly qualified.

That is not the case this year.

One is glaringly not qualified. So before you do anything with your well-earned degree, you must do everything you can to defeat the retrograde forces that have invaded our democratic process, divided our house. To fight against, no matter your political persuasion, the dictatorial tendencies of the candidate with zero experience in the much maligned, but subtle art of governance.

Who is against lots of things, but doesn’t seem to be for anything-- offering only bombastic and contradictory promises and terrifying Orwellian statesman, a person who easily lies, creating an environment where the truth doesn’t seem to matter, who has never demonstrated any interest in anyone or anything, but himself and his own enrichment. Who insults veterans, threatens the free press, mocks the handicapped, denigrates women, immigrants, and all Muslims; a man who took more than a day to remember to disavow a supporter who advocates white supremacy and the Ku Klux Klan.

An infantile, bullying man, who depending on his mood is willing to discard old and established alliances, treaties, and long-standing relationships.

I feel genuine sorrow for the understandably scared and they feel powerless-- people who have flocked to his campaign in the mistaken belief that as often happens on TV, a wand can be waved and every complicated problem can be solved with the simplest of solutions. They can’t; it is a political Ponzi scheme. And asking this man to assume the highest office in the land would be like asking a newly minted car driver to fly a 747.

As a student of history, I recognize this type. He emerges everywhere and in all eras. We see nurtured in his campaign an incipient proto-fascism, a nativist anti-immigrant know-nothingism, a disrespect for the judiciary, the prospect of women losing authority over their own bodies, African Americans again asked to go to the back of the line, voter suppression gleefully promoted, jingoistic saber rattling, a total lack of historical awareness, a political paranoia that predictably points fingers, always making the other wrong.

These are all virulent strains that have at times infected us in the past, but they now loom in front of us again, all happening at once. We know from our history books that these are the diseases of ancient and now fallen empires.

We know from our history books that these are the diseases of ancient and now fallen empires. The sense of commonwealth, of shared sacrifice, of trust-- so much a part of American life is eroding fast, spurred along and amplified by an amoral Internet that permits a lie to circle the globe three times before the truth can get started.

We longer have the luxury of neutrality or balance or even bemused disdain. Many of our media institutions have largely failed to expose this charlatan, torn between a nagging responsibility to good journalism and the big ratings a media circus always delivers. In fact, they have given him the abundant airtime he so desperately craves, so much so that it has actually worn down our natural human revulsion to this kind of behavior. Hey, he’s rich; he must be doing something right. He’s not.

Edward R. Murrow would have exposed this naked emperor months ago. He is an insult to our history. And do not be deceived by his momentary good behavior; it’s only a spoiled misbehaving child hoping somehow to still have dessert.

And do not think that the tragedy in Orlando underscores his points; it does not. We must disenthrall ourselves as Abraham Lincoln said from the culture of violence and guns and then we shall save our country. This ladies and gentlemen is not a liberal or conservative issue, a red state, blue state divide; this is an American issue. Many honorable people, including the last two Republican presidents-- members of the party of Abraham Lincoln-- have declined to support him.

And I implore those Vichy Republicans who have endorsed him to please, please reconsider. We must remain committed to the kindness and community that are the hallmarks of civilization and reject the troubling unfiltered Tourette’s of his tribalism.

The next few months of your commencement, that is to say, your future will be critical to the survival of the Republic. The occasion is piled high with difficulty. Let us pledge here today that we will not let this happen to the exquisite, yet deeply flawed land we all love and cherish, and hope to leave intact to our posterity.

Let us nobly save, not meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.

Nothing to add to that-- except that I wish Hillary Clinton had watched Burns' speech carefully, thought about it and taken it to heart-- instead of emulating Trump. Bernie, of course, didn't need to listen to Burns' speech to understand the appropriate response to the Orlando tragedy. Speaking to a crowd in Burlington today, he said,"We know that one hateful person committed this terrible crime-- not an entire people or an entire religion. To blame an entire religion for the acts of a single individual is bigotry, pure and simple. It is not what this country is about, and not what this city is about... Our job is not to allow politicians, Mr. Trump or anyone else, to divide us up by where our family came from, the color of our skin, our religion or our sexual orientation."