Some good news on the democracy front!

From Romania!

The largest anti-government crowds since the violent 1989 revolution that toppled dictator Nicolae Ceausescu succeeded Sunday in pressuring Romania’s new government to repeal a hastily adopted decree that would have eased penalties for official corruption.

The law, opposed by the influential Romanian Orthodox Church, would have weakened the country’s emerging anti-corruption effort, which has begun to make progress against a ruling culture accustomed to acting with impunity.

The government backed down Sunday following six days of street protests, but plans to introduce another version of the law in Parliament, where it would be debated and possibly passed.

The late-night introduction last week of an emergency ordinance< to turn a blind eye toward abuse in office by officials if the amount involved was less than about $48,500 provoked a lightning response from Romania’s civil society.

Nightly throngs in Bucharest and other major cities pit angry citizens who believe a modern, pro-European Romania must not condone corruption in high places against a moneyed elite that stands to benefit, if the law eventually passes.

Trump's rhetoric

Using Trump's words against him.

Heather Havrilesky is on to something. If you are entitled to vote in the USA, your opinion means something to your Representative and Senators. Instead of ranting at your friends who already agree with you, and at real Trump supporters, who never will, try this strategy:

In just two short weeks, President Donald Trump has destabilized the globe and quickly eroded even our most trusted alliances. This is exactly what his likely sponsor Putin wants, of course. This is exactly what his white supremacist advisor Bannon wants — he’s said so on the record (“Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal, too.”). And if sowing fear in the populace offers the GOP an excuse to pump up military spending, so be it. Most Americans, however, prefer to sleep well at night. And if we’re going to take a clear, resounding stand against this unthinkable menace, we have to use his own tricks against him.

For instance:


Think about how you might discuss the head-spinningly bad judgment that led to his first and failed military operation in Yemen. Instead of talking about how all special ops are sticky but President Obama, in spite of his flaws, was incredibly careful about not putting American forces in harm’s way, try this: It was a disaster, a huge disaster, and totally preventable. Trump messed up. Completely incompetent. Or maybe you'd say: Those SEALs went in there, and got torn apart. Nightmare, never should’ve happened. Trump messed up, big league. Completely unstable. Of course, Democrats and progressives are incredibly afraid of using rhetoric of fear, like Trump and Bannon do. But isn’t fear our new reality? Aren’t we scared out of our minds over Trump, a man who has quickly demonstrated that he’s self-obsessed, unthinkably reckless, and utterly incapable of making even the faintest diplomatic sounds come out of his mouth? We can’t sit back and wait, because his mistakes are going to build on each other until they snowball into a global disaster.

Think about how you might discuss the head-spinningly bad judgment that led to his first and failed military operation in Yemen. Instead of talking about how all special ops are sticky but President Obama, in spite of his flaws, was incredibly careful about not putting American forces in harm’s way, try this:

It was a disaster, a huge disaster, and totally preventable. Trump messed up. Completely incompetent.

Drink Your Blood! sketches for the graphic novel of the Combat of the 30

The right words at the right place at the right time

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's words live.

He also said:

“We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.” 

Thanks, Dietrich.

Trouble in Capital City!

In my years as a university professor, I taught both the English Civil War (=Revolution) and the French Revolutions, and the American one as well, all of them at various levels of detail.  On all of them, I read far more material than ever got into my lectures.


I've always had an interest in constitutional law and constitutional change and so lots of facts and theories continue to rattle around in my head, waiting for a moment of relevance when they will pop out.

Here's today's moment of relevance.

It is a sign of real trouble to come that Trump has managed to alienate a large number judges in his first week in office.  Any political system that has a meaningful constitution (not necessarily a good, or  democratic or even a healthy constitution, just one that more or less functions) needs the support of the judiciary and the senior lawyers to get anything important done.  The collaboration (usually an uncomfortable one) between the elected officials and the judiciary etc. is a well-known feature of the American political system; but this applies to places like Pakistan where more than once a quite corrupt, autocratic and military-based government has been stopped in its tracks (or at least slowed down) by lawyers demonstrating and resisting.  (On at least one occasion I remember hearing that the lawyers brought clubs (which looked a lot like sticks of rattan!), whether for offensive or defensive purposes I don't know.

In both the English and French Revolutions, some of the earliest conflict was between the executive branch and the constitutional courts.  The judges, if I recall correctly, took a "conservative" stand, while the king and his  ministers were trying to introduce innovations (partly to raise money) and justifying their actions on the right of the king, or at least the crown, to tell everybody else what to do.  The argument over what was constitutional soon got out of hand.

I am not saying that we are on the brink of an American revolution.  But the situation has tremendous potential for instability.

Image:  Don't mess with this guy!

How to respond to Trump

I am a regular reader of Josh Marshall's politics website, talkingpointsmemo.com.  Back in the early 2000s, I found him one of the most sensible and honest American commentators on both the Bush regime and its disastrous wars.

Recently Josh wrote an optimistic piece on the current political situation, optimism meaning "not primarily a prediction but an ethic, a philosophy, a way of confronting the world."  Granting all the terrible problems Americans (yes, and others) face, he also sees a positive challenge.  He does it by referring to the famous Lyceum speech made by the young Abraham Lincoln in 1838.  A theme in that speech was the apparent lack of opportunity for Americans to win the glory won by the founders of the republic.


[Sez Josh:]

 Lincoln explained that his generation faced a paradox. They were blessed with free government. But their dutywas simply to preserve it. They had no field for glory and great deeds like those who had lived during the revolutionary era, the last of whom were just dying at the time. To Lincoln, his generation was both immeasurably blessed and yet robbed of the chance for greatness, condemned to a competent and steadfast mediocrity.

 As Lincoln writes ...

This field of glory is harvested, and the crop is already appropriated. But new reapers will arise, and they, too, will seek a field. It is to deny, what the history of the world tells us is true, to suppose that men of ambition and talents will not continue to spring up amongst us. And, when they do, they will as naturally seek the gratification of their ruling passion, as others have so done before them. The question then, is, can that gratification be found in supporting and maintaining an edifice that has been erected by others?

[Josh:] Our field of vision is quite different today, certainly in retrospect. We know that in 1838 slavery was practiced throughout the South, women couldn't vote, much of what we now know as the architecture of democracy and freedom didn't exist. It's hardly like there was no work left to do. And yet there is a basic similarity. The challenge, the potential for accomplishment, for 'glory' to use that archaic and perhaps uncomfortable word that could be found in preservation and betterment simply couldn't compare to that of creation. There is a certain boringness and restraint inherent in being the preservers and betterers of a republic that has endured for almost a quarter of a millennium.

And yet here we have the opportunity to be its guardians and protectors at a unique moment, perhaps a moment of especial peril. Who would not embrace that challenge? We know the curse: may you live in interesting times. We are living in interesting times. Most of us would not have chosen it. But we have it. I think many of us look back at critical momentous moments in our history, the Civil War, World War II, the Civil Rights Movement and other comparable passages in the country's history and think, what would I have done? Where would I have been? Well, now's your moment to find out. We are living in interesting times. We should embrace it rather than feel afraid or powerless. We have a fabric of 240 years of republican government behind us. We have the tools we need.

This isn't naiveté. It's not any willful looking away from anything that is before us. It's being ready. It is embracing the challenge of the moment rather than cowering. It's having some excitement and gratitude for living in a moment when a new and potent challenge to preserving who we are has fallen to us.

Reserved.

The overall message:  Let's not be crybabies.


Elsewhere on the Web I have noted other people arguing for an equally important point.  Fact-checking Donald Trump at this point is going to be of limited utility.  Anyone who cares to know Donald Trump and his character knows what they need to know.  Getting involved in debates on his latest outrageous statement just lets him set the terms of the debate, and since he doesn't play fair, what does that get us?
.  A sense of our own virtue?  But that doesn't win elections, deal with climate change, or achieve any of a number of worthwhile goals.


What's needed is for that same fact-checking, critical energy to be put into organizing --  some of which will be reporting facts people need to know, but also in building organizations and movements to resist Trumpism and achieve real political goals. To Americans, let me suggest that the make-up of the House of Representatives and what to do about it should be something you think about ALL THE TIME.  The Republicans are in charge now.  Make sure, using tactics pioneered by the Tea Party, that they have to take responsibility for every disaster that takes place on their watch.  There will be no lack of them.

My history of the SCA

Last year was the fiftieth anniversary of the Society for Creative Anachronism.  As a professional historian who has been a member of the SCA from practically the beginning, I seemed to be a logical choice to write a history of the organization to be distributed to people who would attend the celebratory event.  I found the idea intriguing.  I've spent much of my life studying how medieval writers created histories and chronicles.  Now I was being asked to do much the same thing for my own times, based firmly on my own experience.  Quite different from writing scholarly history of some long-ago era.


I liked the result and so did many readers, so I decided to publish it for a wider public.  Thanks to Stonebunny Press, the book is now available. 


Here is the back-cover blurb:

The Society for Creative Anachronism, which started out essentially as a backyard party in the ‘60s, is now a world-wide organization with members in the tens of thousands. To mark the occasion of the Society's 50th anniversary in 2016, Steven Muhlberger was asked to write a history of the organization, from its fledgling days when hobbits and elves were not an uncommon sight, to recent times when much more emphasis is placed on historical accuracy. Dr. Muhlberger was uniquely qualified for this task. He is a professional historian with seven scholarly books to his name, and has a long and diverse experience in the SCA, where he is known as Duke Finnvarr de Taahe. Under that name he has been recognized for excellence in tournament combat, reigned twice as king, and been honored for high accomplishment in the arts and exceptional service to the organization. Dr. Muhlberger describes how the Society originated in the unique environment of California's Bay Area; how a combination of discontent and whimsical creativity led a small group of young people to stage a tournament and then found "the Current Middle Ages;" and how this movement grew to include, eventually, participants on every continent. This is the story of how 20th-century America produced one of its most interesting and popular historical hobbies. This volume is a must for anyone interested in the SCA and its origins, in medieval re-enactment and its connection to science-fiction and fantasy fandom, and in what has been called "inter-kingdom anthropology" – how the Society relates to the larger society around it.

 
And here is the front cover, by the inimitable Merald Clark:

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51MOVetSm%2BL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg