OK, Non-Boomer

 

Among the ways that MAGA officials sought to denigrate the recent No Kings demonstrations was to scoff that participants were a bunch of old people.  Pretty much Boomers, in other words.  The implication was that because of this they could be easily ignored.

Joining in this scorn was a video opinion piece by Emily Holzknecht and Binyamin Appelbaum featured on the digital front page of the New York Times both the day before and day of the No Kings events on October 18.  This screed attempted to blame what they regard as the failure of the American Dream for subsequent generations on the 76 million individuals who happened to have been born between 1946 and 1964: the Baby Boom generation. 

Dumping on the Boomers has become fashionable, especially since it is pretty safe (though not very seemly) now that most of this generation are elderly and past retirement age.  It's not the first time the New York Times has fingered the otherwise unidentified Boomers for what are clearly disturbing features of contemporary America that affect all of us. But instead of analyzing what and who might be specifically responsible, they scapegoat an entire group, a practice familiar to us from dark places and periods in not always distant history.

 But apart from its curious timing, this piece had several distinguishing features.  It was plainly accusatory and smilingly contemptuous. At times it felt like hate. It employed lots of imagery, including using a child to advance their script--it always helps to make bigotry as cute as possible.

And published at the time of the latest No Kings protest. it more or less began by sneering at the signs carried by Boomers at this year's earlier protests against a racist, sexist, oligarchic and increasingly fascistic cabal with a stranglehold on the federal government.  

Around this time, with no overt reference to this Times hit job, Rachel Maddow addressed this critique common to MAGA and the Times, and expanded on Boomer (and older) participation through an interview with Bill McKibben, who is among other things one of the founders of Third Act, an organization for older activists, especially on environmental issues, with local chapters and a national at-large chapter.  (The only clip I could find of her comments on You Tube was in the form of one of those annoying short loops, but the McKibben interview is here in full.) 

Maddow listed some of the reasons that older protesters "is a good thing," including the higher propensity of older Americans to actually vote, and because every generation gets statistically more conservative as it ages, so the willingness of Boomers to put themselves out there should be scary to MAGAdom, which it is. 

McKibben admitted (with pride) that Boomers have been "over-represented" in this year's protests, which really means that a higher percentage of this largest generation is out there again, than that of any younger generation. And gee, ain't that awful of us?

Clearly the Boomers forcing their metaphorical or actual walkers onto the field of play aren't the only people out there, but their presence is important and for the most part, welcomed by other participants.  For one thing they add to confidence that participation is reasonably safe, and whole families can attend.  They bring experience, and a certain spark.  As McKibben said in that interview, younger people know this administration is bad, but if you've lived through a dozen or more presidencies, you have a clearer idea of how dangerously aberrant this one is.  

As defined by demographers but with some support in cultural history, the Baby Boom forms a huge generation.  Though it is known by the large numbers of its "members" at the forefront of activism and cultural change, in fact even larger numbers stayed on the fringes of this, or opposed it.  Something that actual Boomers know from experience.  Apart from this lived distinction, this generation includes just about every kind of person, with every kind of job and personal history, in every place in America.  To make the Times' generalizations is preposterous, and should be acutely embarrassing. 

The signs that Holzknecht and Appelbaum ridiculed, that said something like "I can't believe I'm still out here protesting," told one likely truth: that within the over-represented elders cohort, is the over-representation of those who'd been out there before.  They were among those who marched and agitated and voted for changes in society that, for instance, very likely benefitted those authors, who without them might not have gotten within a mile of the New York Times front page. 

Out in those protests today, those boomers provide experience in peaceful means, in how to conduct a non-violent but spirited protest.  I'm only guessing but I'd bet that they were also over-represented in the 20,000 people in New York alone who took some form of training to keep these events peaceful.  And I'm sure they were grateful that the tradition of training and monitors on the march has survived from Civil Rights and anti-war days.  They contributed to the most stunning fact about No Kings Day: some 7 million protesters, with 0 protesters arrested.

 Those scorned Boomers who joked about being veterans of years of demonstrations may have other stories to tell about them. Boomers were prominent participants when protests were threatened with violence and sometimes they were the victims of it.  Many of us knew the smell of tear gas more than once. These protests were seldom popular.  Some were very small, like a Civil Rights vigil held in the rain, or an anti-war vigil in the snow, with passing cars honking not in support but with ridicule. They often seemed futile.  But we persisted.

I recently reviewed photos of early 1960s Civil Rights protests, and noticed something I'd forgotten: how so many included a particular gesture of crossed arms linked.  And singing together.  I am nourished today by those revived memories.  I'm proud to have been there.

Younger people know things are bad, but it may take a perspective gained by blood, sweat, tears and time to better define what's wrong and what it means.  (I'm thinking of one of those Boomer signs, "Accusing others of crimes that you commit--that is fascism.")  The memory of early boomers can even include our parents' time through their stories and cultural artifacts: the Depression, World War II, Hitler, the Holocaust.  Among white Americans, we may well have been closer to family members who were immigrants, such as our grandparents and parents. 

McKibben called it "wisdom," and I'm sure there are elder Boomers with that.  Knowledge synthesized and tested over time is something Boomers offer to younger protesters, and younger people in general.  If only they can refrain from giving in to shadow resentment and fashionable scorn, and join in figuring out who is actually responsible for what's going wrong, and together doing something about it.

Well, I can't match the Times for slick visuals.  But I can arrange some photographs...

These Boomers at No Kings around the nation on October 18...

   

Superior, Wisconsin

   

Manitowoc, Wisconsin

Eureka, CA (also top photo)

Michigan

West Palm Beach, Florida

...May well have been the Boomers at these events...

2023 Climate Crisis Protest in New York

2019 LGBTQ in Washington

2017 Women's March in Washington

Earth Day Denver 1970

Women's Liberation March 1970

Anti-Draft in late 1960s

Anti-War in late 1960s

1975 Boston

1965 Voting Rights Protest, Montgomery, Alabama

Mid- 1960s Washington

1964 Freedom Summer.  I was scheduled to help re-supply Freedom Summer workers
the following fall from my college, but an older student claimed my spot at the last minute.

That's me, captured on a B-roll film camera
as I got off the train at Union Station to
participate in the 1963 March on Washington
for Jobs and Freedom.  Born at the very
beginning of the Boomer generation, I was
not yet 17.  And yes, I wore a suit and tie.
Most of the men at the March did, too.

We Care

Media coverage of crowds in the larger American cities Saturday mostly had the same estimate: huge.  With smaller municipalities, the emphasis was on the number of total places: some 2700 registered events in all 50 US states, with more in Canada and staged by Americans in Europe. 

According to its organizers, No Kings Day on Saturday brought out some 7 million people.  Some speculated and some (like Senator Bernie Sanders) simply stated that it was the single largest one day protest in American history.

Organizers estimated 200,000 in Washington DC.  New York City police announced their estimate of more than 100,000 across the five boroughs, "with zero arrests."

After days of Republicans predicting violence and small isolated crowds, characterizing protestors as terrorists and people who hate America, claiming they were all being paid, the official White House response to the actual events Saturday was: "Who cares."

Besides larger numbers than No Kings in June, there seemed to be more participation by labor unions, and protests spread deeper into MAGA territory.  Charlottesville, Virginia saw crowds double in size from June.  

Atmosphere in most places was described as festive, with the colorful animal costumes that went viral from recent anti-ICE protests in Portland, Oregon.  Protests in Jefferson City, Missouri were joined by American Revolution re-enactors.  There was no violence to speak of anywhere, which must be at least partly due to the organizers training participants in de-escalation and safety.  Every registered event was required to have a safety plan.

In Seattle, the line of marchers was one mile long.  No surprise that there were notably huge crowds in Portland and in Chicago where there have been anti-Gestapo protests every day, eventually in every part of the city and every suburb.  But I don't remember this ever happening: there was a No Kings protest in my hometown of Greensburg, PA.

Media stories often interviewed participants.  They were nearly as articulate as their signs.  Who cares?  Apparently a lot of us.

Note: Click on photo to see it full size.

This photo and top photo: Chicago

Portland, OR

Washington, DC

Pittsburgh, PA

Atlanta, GA

Kalamazoo, Mich.

West Palm Beach, FLA

Sioux Fall, South Dakota

Cincinnati, Ohio

Bozeman, Montana

Chicago

Hartford, Connecticut

Clearwater, Florida

Greensburg, PA (or maybe Pittsburgh)

Berlin, Germany

Rome, Italy

Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina

Seattle, Washington

Waxhaw, North Carolina

Eureka, CA

Eureka, Ca.  All Eureka photos from Lost Coast Outpost

Stupendous Fraud

 

“Let me make it clear that I don’t harbor any idealized notion of politics and democracy,” he said in a 2013 speech to NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice, followed by a quip: “I worked for Lyndon Johnson, remember?” 

But, he added in that speech, “there is nothing idealized or romantic about the difference between a society whose arrangements roughly serve all its citizens and one whose institutions have been converted into a stupendous fraud. That difference can be the difference between democracy and oligarchy.” 

Bill Moyers

quoted by John Light    

NO KINGS SATURDAY OCTOBER 18                                                                                                                           

Dreaming Up Daily Quote

 

“In Pynchon’s telling, the strongest, most persistent force in this country is the ruling class’s effort to gain more wealth and power. The masses are led to believe that “compliance is the price of liberty,” as a federal agent in Shadow Ticket puts it, and they are threatened with violence if they don’t cooperate. But it’s not just that people are cowed into submission. Fearing disorder and rejecting freedom’s responsibilities, especially our obligations to one another, we willingly cede liberty in exchange for simplicity and a false sense of safety. Fascist tendencies have always been lodged deep in the American grain.”

Andrew Katzenstein, from his review of Thomas Pynchon's new novel Shadow Ticket, in the New York Review of Books, October 23 issue.

Chicago

The Chaos-created federal invasion of Chicago is a complex and fast-moving situation.  At the moment I write this, Texas National Guard troops are massing in Chicago, and a federal judge will hear arguments for and against their deployment on Thursday.  Already however an unknown number--but certainly in the hundreds-- of American Gestapo (ICE and other agencies) with military hardware are in the city conducting various operations.  At least one civilian has been killed and others injured by Gestapo arms. (They seem to have targeted clergy.)  Chaos warns that if federal judges don't see things his way he may invoke the Insurrection Act, and on Wednesday accused all Democrats of being insurrectionists.

So almost lost in the shuffle is an event that transpired on Tuesday, September 30 that has been only slowly and not prominently reported nationally. Because so much is happening and is likely to continue happening in Chicago and elsewhere, it is already in danger of being forgotten. But this to me is a Never Forget story.  Wherever it will ultimately be placed in this series of ongoing events, I wanted to make it part of the record I've been keeping on this site of the gathering Chaos dictatorship.

I think Reuters was first to break this story beyond the Chicago media, but the lead paragraphs of Rebecca Schneid's piece in Time Magazine summarizes the events as pretty consistently reported:

At around 1 a.m. on Tuesday morning, armed federal agents rappelled from helicopters onto the roof of a five-storey residential apartment in the South Shore of Chicago. The agents worked their way through the building, kicking down doors and throwing flash bang grenades, rounding up adults and screaming children alike, detaining them in zip-ties and arresting dozens, according to witnesses and local reporting.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker accused the federal agents of separating children from their parents, zip-tying their hands, and detaining them in “dark vans” for hours. Videos of the raid show flashbang grenades erupting on the street, followed by residents of the building—children among them—being led to a parking lot across the street. Photos of the aftermath show toys and shoes littering the apartment hallways that were left in the chaos as people were pulled from their beds by the operation that included FBI and Homeland Security agents.

Pritzker condemned the raid and said that he would work with local law enforcement to hold the agents accountable. “Military-style tactics should never be used on children in a functioning democracy,” he said in a statement on Friday. “​​This didn’t happen in a country with an authoritarian regime – it happened here in Chicago. It happened in the United States of America – a country that should be a bastion of freedom, hope, and the rights of our people as guaranteed by the Constitution,” he added.

Other stories reported vast damage left behind by the raid to virtually every apartment in the building, making many unlivable.  Local officials and agencies are working to relocate families now homeless.  It's reported that many are immigrants from Venezuela, though American citizens were also caught in this indiscriminate attack, which can only be described as a military operation previously seen only in foreign countries.

At the behest of Democratic ranking members, the House Committee on Homeland Security and Judiciary launched a congressional investigation. Their statement:

 "According to media reports, armed federal agents in military fatigues approached or entered nearly every apartment in the five-story, 130-unit apartment building, using flashbang grenades, busting down doors, and pulling men, women and children from their beds. Agents put residents in zip ties and led them to unmarked vans to wait for hours while handcuffed, with children separated from their parents,” the Members wrote.

“Reporting indicates that there were U.S. citizens and military veterans among those dragged out of their apartments in zip ties and detained for hours,” the Members added. “They were not told why they were detained, and they were not allowed to contact attorneys. Residents report significant property damage and having their units ransacked. Doors were blown off hinges and holes left in walls. When returning to their apartments, some residents found their items stolen after federal agents left apartments open.” 

After making 37 arrests during the operation, DHS claimed, without providing any evidence, that neighborhood was a location frequented by Tren de Aragua members. However, law enforcement authorities have not confirmed that any of the people arrested in this raid were members of Tren de Aragua. 

“It is unacceptable that this violent, heavy-handed immigration enforcement operation put families and children at risk and detained U.S. citizens, while traumatizing an entire community.”

A Chicago Sun-Times story, detailing the immediate condemnation by Chicago area Democratic members of Congress, begins this way:

Pertissue Fisher is still recovering from being detained by federal immigration agents who burst into her South Shore apartment building and pulled her and other residents from their beds early Wednesday morning.

An agent put a gun in her face, she said. Another placed her in handcuffs tight enough to leave bruises.

Fisher and other victims of the raid are U.S. citizens, but they were still held for hours.

On October 7, Amnesty International USA issued a statement:

Amnesty International USA condemns the September 30, pre-dawn ICE raid on an apartment building in a historically Black neighborhood in Chicago. According to news reports, federal agents raided the apartment building, broke into homes without warrants in the middle of the night, forcibly removed residents, including children, from their homes, zip-tied their hands, and interrogated them without access to legal counsel. 

“It is shocking that federal agents unlawfully broke into homes, tore residents – including children – from their beds, zip-tied their hands, and interrogated people on the streets,” said Paul O’Brien, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA. “This terrifying raid demonstrates the new normal for communities across the United States: increasing militarization under the guise of immigration enforcement in complete disregard for human rights.” 

“Deploying military forces and federal officers with weapons and other equipment into our neighborhoods, creates an atmosphere of intimidation and fear and facilitates the unlawful use of force, arbitrary detention and other human rights violations,” said O’Brien. “Militarized forces should not be roving our communities and snatching away our friends and neighbors. These raids are creating a climate of fear for all of us, especially immigrant and Black, brown, and Indigenous communities. This is not about public safety. It’s a clear expansion of authoritarian practices intended to stoke racism, instill fear across communities and silence dissent, and it must stop.” 

Amnesty International USA demands a full independent investigation into the unlawful raid and calls for immediate accountability. Congress must immediately stop funding ICE and hold ICE and other federal agencies accountable for their lawlessness and abuses.  

“The government has an obligation to uphold the rule of law and ensure that nobody is above the law,” said O’Brien. “These raids are an attack on human rights and a threat to everybody in the U.S.  Federal officials who committed human rights violations during the raids, including those with command responsibility, must be held accountable.” 

I personally have not been back to Chicago in decades, but the South Side is where I spent the most time in the city.  I went to college with many students from "Chicagoland" and still have old friends and relatives in Chicago.  My thoughts and feelings are with them, and with Chicago in this perilous time.

But all of this goes beyond Chicago. In his Substack post, Paul Krugman called it "State Terrorism, American Style."  "We didn’t expect America to become a country where masked secret policemen smash down your door in the middle of the night and take you away. Yet that’s where we are."  He concludes:

"And don’t expect the attacks to be limited to immigrants. A recent White House memo directs the FBI to investigate groups as potential domestic terrorists based on incredibly expansive criteria, including “anti-capitalism” and “anti-Christianity” views. This would basically empower going after any kind of dissent. "   

The Silence of the Generals

 As shamefully awful as it was, it could have been worse.  When the news reported that hundreds of high-ranking officers of the American military, including generals and admirals currently stationed around the world, were suddenly summoned to Washington for...whatever, and this was happening the day before the government shutdown that the White House was doing everything it could to make happen, ominous alarms went off in many anxious minds. 

 Some were reminded of the Nazi gathering of its military leaders to pledge loyalty not to Germany but to Hitler personally.  After all, the full dictatorship needs only a declaration of martial law, dissolving Congress and canceling elections on the pretext of some emergency--for example, a government shutdown.

At least that didn't happen.  Yet.  Instead the top brass--the survivors who weren't axed by Chaos-- were packed together like olive drab and Navy blue sardines to hear a couple of absurd speeches.  Chaos rambled and ranted, another shameful performance that inflamed commentators to conclude he is mentally unfit for the office, again.  This after what was described as a kind of bizarre TED talk by the fall-down drunk currently supervising the armed forces, summarizing the talking points of his last year's book, setting slightly new standards for physical fitness and calling for more concentration on "lethality."  

Throughout these hours, the Generals and Admirals were silent--with maybe a few chuckles at the beginning of Chaos remarks, in the spirit of his weird singsong Borscht Belt comedian imitations--a silence that unnerved him.  Later, the New York Times reporter on site could not find one who said they heard a good presentation.  

Their silence spoke loudly.  But many wondered what was going on in the minds behind those  faces frozen in poses of seeming affectless attention.  Lawrence O'Donnell suggested one thought was probably, "If I'm ordered to send my missiles, how will I know the person ordering me is sane?"  O"Donnell's answer is "you don't."

But the speech itself told them that this is not a commander in chief who has serious thoughts about the world, but a commander who asserts that which manifestly is not factual let alone true.  A commander who suggests military training include occupying US cities, itself contrary to the law they are sworn to uphold.  But then, the whole political content of the speech was unlawful, so why split hairs?  

As the Secretary pranced and postured, and Chaos droned on, the Generals and Admirals had plenty of time to think about the strategic implications of what this administration has done, apart from the dangerous and unsettling nonsense they say.  These surviving military leaders have seen their services--every one of them--decapitated of their top leadership, including the Joint Chiefs.  Are the survivors now going to be Chaos loyalists, or follow the trend of major corporations and cowardly give in to what they know is wrong?  Nobody knows. Yet.  But if we assume they are not uniformly so, then the first thing they might be thinking about is the loss of those top officers and the effect on the readiness, morale and experienced leadership now needed, as well as strategically affecting the future.

Then there are the reversals of policy in the face of facts.  The armed services know they have benefited in various ways (not the least in recruitment) by their specific polices now demonized as Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.  As they looked around at their gathering, they could not help but notice that there were many fewer women and people of color, though the medals of those missing people were the same colors as theirs.

It takes a long time for huge military organizations to change, but once they change they do it full out.  So what are they thinking now?

What are they thinking about strategies organized around the fact that the Pentagon concluded years ago that the greatest long-term threat to national security is the climate crisis, and that is not only going unaddressed, but to even admit its reality is forbidden.  

They know that apart from blunt force actions imposed on vastly inferior opponents, like sending powerful warplanes to blow up little boatloads of unknown people on the high seas without warning, the next major war, if there is one (since people like them know it is also likely to be the last major war) will depend on sophisticated electronic systems, for which prowess in pushups will be irrelevant.  

And so they observe that the carefully constructed infrastructure for science and research is being dismantled, the universities where necessary education and innovation takes place are under attack, and the best minds attracted from abroad to American universities and companies are being blocked, demonized and threatened. Tariffs are also hobbling advances in high tech, especially in areas where China is seeking advantage, and presumably can't believe its luck. There is no sense of the national interest in this administration--just warped ideology and corrupt deals to make certain wealthy people wealthier.  

Universities are targeted for their foreign students, who come often with better preparation, better motivation, and not incidentally, they generally pay full freight (which enables those universities to offer scholarships to Americans.)  It is true that many universities (as well as private preparatory schools) depend on a lot of foreign students, but if any remedy is required, the most sensible one is to improve American elementary and secondary schools, which have been deteriorating for decades.  Probably most Generals and Admirals would agree.

They may also reflect that the successes of American military efforts in an interdependent world have often involved supporting diplomacy, and undertaking peacekeeping and rescue missions.  Now the paranoid man from Fox News lectures them on lethality, which is another way of saying you are killers, and that's all you need to do or know, us smart people in suits will do the thinking, which will mostly involve giving you orders to kill.  After all, our top diplomats know nothing about diplomacy, and care less.  The Chaos idea of diplomacy is bullying a one-sided deal, a policy that extends to basically everything.

These Generals and Admirals, whatever their roles and responsibilities, must require a flow of dependable information, which chaos and warped priorities in this federal government clearly does not value, and in fact punishes and fires those who insist on accuracy. So that flow slows and its content becomes tainted and untrustworthy.

As for this new mission of patrolling and applying force (and presumably "lethality") in American cities, if they are posted in the US or have stuck around after this drab day long enough to observe things, they might have noticed that the American people are by and large against this role, and that where it is attempted, that opposition is in the streets.  Evaluating the facts on the ground is part of what those Generals and Admirals necessarily must do, while their political overlords can choose to believe their anti-factual rhetoric, or pretend to.

They are likely more aware than the rest of us of the chaos injected into the National Guard, sent suddenly on vague missions for which they are completely unprepared and untrained--no longer helping their fellow citizens in emergency management situations, but confronting them on their own streets.  They likely know the distress and dissatisfaction in the ranks, and the extent of the problems with retention and recruitment.

The silent Generals may conclude that things are getting a lot more dangerous for the United States, its people and its future, as a consequence of this Chaos. But you don't have to be a General or an Admiral to feel this, to sense the return of certain nightmares identified with the 1950s and 60s when nuclear Armageddon could destroy the foundations of your life forever in a week, a day, an hour, a minute.  We aren't used to those nightmares--we've got new ones.  But they are poised to make a comeback (with or without nukes), perhaps even within the silence of the Generals.