Posted on by rjonakait

Whither Populism? Marxism? No, wait, Nationalism? No, wait…

I have been trying to understand terms I hear in current political discourse.

Let’s take, e.g., “Populism.” Okay. Populism, government for the people, opposes elites. Originally that meant economic elites, which were seen as controlling both society and the government. Populists were against corporate power, the banks, and the rich generally. That has changed. Now Elon Musk and Donald Trump are labeled Populists. Really? There seems now to be little of the traditional concern about the power of obscene wealth, and the populist movement–certainly not that of Trump and Musk–does not seek to break up or restrict corporate greed or banks. 

Modern populism now targets the cultural elite. This change may have been initiated in the 1960s by George Wallace, who denounced “pointy headed liberals” and Ivy League intellectuals (read, the Kennedys) telling ordinary people what to do. In his case it was the “cultural elite” telling his southern constituents what to do about civil rights. The modern populist has little concern about the economic elites getting more and more while ordinary people cling to their modest means. Instead, the concern is that they may be dislodged by an undeserving class of people (read, Blacks and immigrants) who have been anointed and protected by the cultural elites. In modern populism, the economic elites have won and go unchallenged.

Now. What about Marxism? Marxism was originally a movement to shield workers from the economic inequality created by an aristocratic ruling class. However, this concept, too, has changed. Terms like “bourgeoisie,” “proletariat,” and “means of production” have disappeared. Now, at least in the U.S., “Marxism” is preceded by “cultural.” [Many right-wing people see it as a Jewish conspiracy to subvert Western civilization.] A report published by the American Heritage foundation offers its definition of this ism: “Cloaking their goals under the pretense of social justice, [cultural Marxists] now seek to dismantle the foundations of the American republic by rewriting history; reintroducing racism; creating privileged classes; and determining what can be said in public discourse, the military, and houses of worship. Unless Marxist thought is defeated again, today’s cultural Marxists will achieve what the Soviet Union never could: the subjugation of the United States to a totalitarian, soul-destroying ideology.” Those protecting me from the presumed dangers of cultural Marxism, surprisingly, believe that the presentation of history and discourse in various forums can have enough power to destroy Western culture. Presumably these stalwarts know the “correct” history. How did they learn it? And their coy definition does not spell out what they mean by the reintroduction of racism (i.e., racism against whites?) or what privileged classes are being created. They certainly don’t mean economic elites.

The oxymoronic ism known as Christian Nationalism is somewhat new to me. Christian Nationalism, which is really American Christian Nationalism, which is really white American Christian Nationalism, maintains that this country was founded on Christian principles, or, despite the downfall of DEI, more inclusively, Judeo-Christian principles. First of all, there weren’t many Jews in the country at our founding. Ironically (and confusingly), those opposing cultural Marxism are often allied with Christian Nationalists even though those Nationalists are rewriting history. Historians who don’t just make things up maintain that Christianity, Judeo or otherwise, had little effect on our formation. For example,Thomas E. Ricks in First Principles: What America’s Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped our Country (2020) reports that Christianity and religious influence in general was low in colonial America and remained subdued until 1815. Despite the first so-called Great Awakening in America in the 1730’s, in 1776 the states had only one minister for every 1500. Robert Putnam with Shaylan Romney Garrett in The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again (2020) similarly tell us that colonial era was not as religiously observant as myths would have it. At the Revolution perhaps twenty percent were members of a religious body, which had increased to thirty-four percent by 1850. Jill Lepore in These Truths: A History of the United States (2018) also concludes that this country was founded in one of its most secular eras.

Give yourself a little test. Think of all the Founders who were known for their devout Christianity. The list is not short; it is nonexistent. Instead, perhaps you thought of Thomas Jefferson who famously did a cut-and-paste job on his Bible to remove all the supernatural elements from the New Testament including the resurrection. Or consider Fergus M. Bordewich in The First Congress: How James Madison, George Washington, and a Group of Extraordinary Men Invented the Government (2016) who said that while Washington was raised as an Anglican and had some sort of belief in God, “it is doubtful that he believed in the divinity of and resurrection of Christ, and he certainly did not consider the US government based on the Christian religion.” Many of the founding fathers were, in fact, proponents of Deism, a rational theology that acknowledges the existence of a creative force but does not recognize a supernatural deity directing the lives of humans.

Apparently, however, to the (white)(American) Christian Nationalists all this historical evidence is fake history, and they continue to maintain that the country was founded on Christian principles. They point to the Declaration of Independence which does refer to “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” They fail to realize that both are given a decidedly un-Christian equal billing, and they ignore that referencing “Nature’s God” does not evoke Christianity. The Declaration also goes on to say “that all men are . . . endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” It is an unimaginable stretch to believe that that unambiguously refers to Yahweh or the Father or anything else Judeo-Christian. Note the Deist-like reference to “the Creator.” And, of course, neither God, Jesus, or even the Creator appear in the Constitution.

In addition, the notion that the country was founded on Christian principles takes a delusional reading of the Bible. At least I can’t find a hint of separation of powers in the Good Book. Or that Congress has the power to regulate interstate commerce. Or that only Congress can declare war. Or that the president can be removed upon a conviction for impeachment. Etc. Etc.

(John Butman and Simon Targett in New World, Inc.: The Making of America by England’s Merchant Adventurersdestroy another myth when they report that when Puritan leader William Bradford gave reasons for Pilgrims to go to the new world, he did not include religious freedom. The Pilgrims already enjoyed that in Holland. As has been true throughout our history for people immigrating here, they came seeking work.)

A second tenet of Christian Nationalism is that America, by divine inspiration, is superior to other nations. Many of these “Christians” come from religious traditions that proclaim that the Bible must be taken literally, but I have not found anywhere references to Jesus the Patriot or Jesus the (white) (American) Christian Nationalism. If Jehovah has whispered America’s superiority into some ears, could you tell Him to speak up so the rest of the world can hear it?

While present populists, opponents of cultural Marxism (significantly, no one seems to advocate for cultural Marxism), and Christian Nationalists all seem to come from the same right-wing pool, Democratic Socialists come from elsewhere. Some leading politicians give themselves this label, but I am struggling to understand their philosophy as well. (Many more politicians call themselves Democrats, but I have little idea what they stand for either. Republicans are easier to understand. They have no mind of their own, and back whatever Trump wants.) I look up definitions of Democratic Socialism, and I get different answers, not all of them consistent with each other. Some sources indicate that Democratic Socialists wish to have socialism achieved through democratic means, but then the definers quickly say that the Democratic Socialists don’t agree what “socialism” is. So far I have not heard the DS politicians seeking state control of all businesses or institutions (uh, no, that seems to be the bailiwick of Trump, see below). Instead, I hear them proclaim that government should commit to affordable housing, healthcare, childcare, food, and transportation; increases in the minimum wage; reversing the widening income inequality; and higher taxes on the super-rich. (If populism means “for the people,” this kinda sounds like populism to me.) At one time, these concerns would have been called liberal. Now they are labeled “left wing,” which indicates how far our country has lurched to the right.

Whatever Democratic Socialists do stand for, it is clear that they are in opposition to the widespread, Candide-like notion that a laissez faire government is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.

However, there is another movement that rejects government neutrality in picking winners and losers so that efficient markets and only efficient markets can drive the economy and the rest of society. Surprisingly, this movement comes from our current president.

The president and a small, unelected group around him–let’s call them the Deep State–have sought or demanded control over many institutions including universities, cultural entities, think tanks, historical associations, and NGOs. Because of fear of or desire for government actions controlled by the president and his deep state, traditional and social media have altered their behaviors. Because of government power to affect them, individuals and companies have felt compelled to donate money to favored Trump projects, such as his inauguration or the ballroom. (None dare call it extortion, but then again, the Supreme Court says that the president can’t be prosecuted.) Corporations have felt compelled to expunge any traces of DEI and have gone well beyond avoiding affirmative action. In spite of proclaimed conservative principles, the current government wants to be involved in shaping corporate decisions. Despite the government’s saying that it is a threat to national security to sell chips to China, the president says you can do it if you give us a share of the profits. Give the president a “golden share” and you can buy the company.

This is not the capitalism that conservatives have touted as essential. This is not the laissez-faire in which markets control outcomes. It is the widespread intervention by a few into society and corporate economies. The decisions made by these billionaires and a few piker multimillionaires is beginning to feel a lot like a Russian-style government takeover ruled by oligarchs, but we dare not call it socialism. What would you call it? Suggestions?

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Murder or War Crimes?

I was recently asked by a facilitator of a current events discussion group to talk about Venezuela. It reminded me of my only conversation with a Venezuelan, and it happened some years ago. He was sitting next to me at a jazz brunch, part of a Pennsylvania music festival. Surprisingly, he and his wife had a home in a nearby Poconos community. He explained how that came about, but I don’t remember the explanation. I knew very little about Venezuela, but I had wondered why baseball was so popular there when it was not in the rest of South America. My brunch partner did not have an answer, but he was a baseball fan and seemed to know of every Venezuelan who was in the major leagues. (Today there are more than a hundred.) I asked him about conditions in Venezuela. I was aware that the president, Hugo Chavez, was an authoritarian who styled himself a socialist and that economic conditions had been deteriorating in the country. My retired companion had been the head of the Venezuelan branch of an American insurance giant. He told me that one of his sons had already left the country for Panama, and he was about to buy a place in that country as well. He said that he and his wife worried that someday they might have to flee their country in a few hours’ notice, and they needed a place to go to. I tried to imagine how unsettling that must feel. Now my imagination can more easily encompass such thoughts, even though I have not investigated an escape route from the U.S. Got suggestions?

While many of the Venezuelan economic problems seem unchanged since my conversation with the jazz lover, I was asked to speak at the current events group about America’s recent actions around and possibly in the country. I started by saying that it was hard to talk about the legality of our sinking boats and blowing up humans because the administration has not made public justifications for our destruction. Slogans have been tossed around—self-defense, unlawful combatants, narcoterrorism, foreign terrorist organizations—but not any true legal rationales. We have not been given any facts. How did we know that the boats carried drugs? Even if they did, how did we know that the drugs were destined for the United States and not other Caribbean nations, Europe, or West Africa? These, too are destinations for drugs leaving Venezuela.

Without legal and the information, it seems that we are in an unauthorized war. If so, we may have already committed war crimes; if not, we may murdered people. Moreover, we don’t know how far Trump’s reasoning carries (if it’s reasoned at all). If we can blow up those who are supposed drug dealers, why should it only be in foreign or international waters? By Trump’s logic, drug dealers within the U.S. are aiding drug cartels that Trump labels foreign terrorist organizations. Drug distributors and perhaps drug users could be labeled unlawful combatants under his reasoning. Can Trump have them summarily killed in this country?

Trump has said that each of the ten bombed boats were carrying drugs that could kill 25,000 Americans. In his mind, he has saved 250,000 lives. The Centers for Disease Control collects information about drug overdose deaths. The latest reports are from 2023 when there were 105,007 overdose deaths from all drugs, which is a slight decline from the previous year. Synthetic opioids (primarily fentanyl) caused 72,776 of those deaths in 2023, also a slight decline. As tragic as drug deaths are, Trump’s figures are vastly exaggerated.

Of course, synthetic opioid deaths did not start with fentanyl and originally weren’t foreign. There were the prescription drugs oxycontin and oxycodone. In 2023, about 13,000 deaths came from these prescription opioids. Most meth, which has harmed many Americans, is not imported. Ask Walter White.

In Trump’s first term, which he does not mention, opioid deaths increased roughly 50%. One of his campaign pledges was to end the fentanyl crisis.

To put this in some perspective: There were 46,728 deaths by guns in 2023. About 18,000 of these were homicides. Another 27,000 were suicides. We don’t have a “war on guns.”

About 41,000 people died in motor vehicle accidents.

Is the drug problem in America an emergency? The War on Drugs was proclaimed by President Nixon in 1971. In 50-plus years we have not been able to quash the drug trade or drug use. One problem: Illegal drugs are a commercial product that Americans want and are willing to pay for. Trump says this is an emergency. Has he just learned about it?

Trump now hints at land actions in Venezuela. The National Security Act of 1947 authorizes the CIA to collect intelligence, conduct counterintelligence, and undertake covert action. The point to covert actions had been to be able to deny them if compromised. By publicly announcing “covert activities” in Venezuela, Trump is again a norm breaker. According to the 1991 Intelligence Authorization Act, the CIA must act only on the basis of presidential findings for covert actions, and the findings must be monitored by House and Senate Committees. This is not happening.

There have probably been many more covert actions in our history than we are aware of, but until now there have been two major realms of activities. The first came out of the Cold War. We undertook many actions fueled by anticommunism. The second came after 9/11 and were part of the War on Terror.

Our government now relies on another rationale, which we could call part of the War on Drugs, a war now longer than our war in Afghanistan and an even bigger failure. But the validity of the drug rationale is dubious, since Venezuela had not been a major supplier of drugs to the U.S. compared to other South American countries. Moreover, cocaine is primarily the drug that comes out of Venezuela, not fentanyl. (Cocaine overdose deaths were 29,449 in 2023.) Fentanyl most often comes from China through Mexico.

Perhaps there is a concern about Venezuelan drugs, but our actions really seem designed to convince Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro that he can’t remain in power. A recent Wall Street Journal article as well as other sources suggest that Marco Rubio has been the prime architect of our Venezuela policy. Rubio as Senator tried for a decade to oust Nicolas Maduro and now he is getting his chance as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State. In Republican circles, Florida, particularly Cuban-Americans in Florida, have strong anti-Maduro sentiments, and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Rubio are all from Florida. Bondi has placed a $50 million bounty on Maduro, accusing him of working with criminal organizations.

We have a heavy military presence in the region, which has been increased. Nuclear-capable B-52 bombers have been flying off Venezuela’s shores, and an aircraft carrier has been sent to the region. We have thousands of troops at our Caribbean military bases.

Venezuela has moved troops into position and mobilized its militia. This is scary stuff. What would be our reaction if Venezuela were sinking American boats? What if Venezuela shoots down the aircraft blowing up the boats and Venezuelans?

Why force Maduro out? One answer: Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves. Perhaps our foreign policy is truly always about oil.

But our policy may also be a throwback to the Cold War.  Maduro proclaims his socialism. Hugo Chavez, who was president of Venezuela from 1999 to his death in 2013, expropriated the assets of hundreds of companies. Nicolas Maduro was Chavez’s (last) vice-president and has continued many of these policies. General Motors and Kimberley-Clark are among the factories that have been seized.

But the situation is even more complicated. Venezuela has not expropriated the property of American oil giant Chevron, which has operated in Venezuela since 1923 and now accounts for about a quarter of the country’s oil production. Opposition leaders see Chevron as propping up the autocratic regime, but Chevron says it is a stabilizing force. Chevron’s role in Trump’s policies is not clear.

What is Trump trying to accomplish with all this saber-rattling? We are still guessing.

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Snippets

My main exposure to farming in Maine came from my friend and colleague Don. His grandfather had a farm near the New Brunswick border, and Don spent part of his high school summers helping out there. The grandfather seemed to be the last of the New England Yankees. He heated his house with wood, and without power tools he cut and split cords upon cords to be ready for the winter. The grandfather may have grown several crops, but Don only talked about the potatoes and the hard work of tilling the soil, burying the seed potatoes, and then later pulling them out. Unpredictable rainfall made the onerous work even harder some years. Don, who had sensitive skin, did not have to worry about the dangerous sun when he was out in the field. He said that the notorious Maine black flies were so bad that he would only go out in full beekeeper’s regalia, which kept the flies from biting but made the hot work even hotter. When Don told me about these summers, he made clear how miserable he had been.

I thought again about Maine farm work when reading The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters for a book group at my residence. The book’s core is a group of Mi’kmaq people who came from Nova Scotia to pick blueberries in Maine. Haad I even been aware that a lot of blueberries are grown in Maine, I had never thought about how they were harvested. My images of migrant workers are people from south of border cutting lettuce or plucking strawberries, not people from the north harvesting fruit in New England. But now those images include those Canadians, and I wonder about other crops. Who harvests cherries in Michigan or wild rice in Minnesota?

The No Kings protest I attended was peaceful, like the others, but small. It was in suburban New York City. A few hundred people lined an intersection waving signs. (The one I saw most often: “No Faux King Way.”) I wore my tee shirt with the faded lettering: “Trump: His Mother Did Not Have Him Tested.” Maybe one or two people understood it. (N.B.: you have to be a fan of “The Big Bang Theory” TV show.) Perhaps I was hoping to be energized, and perhaps that would have happened if I had attended a truly mass rally of thousands like the ones elsewhere in the country. But mostly I was bored and wondered why I was there.

Nevertheless:

“For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.” Thomas Paine.

“The links in the chains of tyranny are usually forged, singly and silently, and sometimes unconsciously, by those who are destined to wear them.” Tully Scott.

“A king can stand people’s fighting but he can’t last long if people start thinking.” Will Rogers.

“Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.” Thomas Jefferson.

“I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” James Madison.

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Why Comply?

We are country based on the rule of law, we say. Perhaps even more important, we are a country of norms. One of those norms is voluntary income tax compliance.

We grumble about it, but almost all of us pay the tax. We may not think of our payments as voluntary. There are laws enforcing it, off course, but in fact I pay the tax expecting that you will pay it. There is little legal enforcement of it. Even so, the American compliance with the income tax is strikingly higher than in many countries. It is one of our important norms. Oh, sure, we may do some fudging—overstate how much we drop into the church collection plate or “forget” to report some minor income, but overall, we pay the income tax.

The norm of voluntary tax compliance is part of a great compact. I pay taxes expecting that, as the Constitution sets forth, congressional representatives will decide how that money should be spent for the good of the country. That, of course, does not mean that we all agree on how the money is allocated and spent. Even so, we pay the tax.

We occasionally have had tax protesters who, because they don’t like the way the country is performing, have not voluntarily paid their taxes because they did not like how the moneys were being spent. They objected to a war, or healthcare policies, or land management decisions. They, in essence, wanted to withdraw from the great compact because they did not like the congressional decisions on how to spend tax money. Even so, the compact—the people pay taxes, and Congress allocates them—continued on. The results may not have been what some wanted, but the compact persisted.

That compact, however, has now been shattered. Now it is one person, not Congress, who has seized the power to determine how to spend our tax moneys. Congress may have allocated funds, but Congress seems to have reneged on its responsibility to see that the funds are spent. That is not the law; it is not the Constitution; and it breaks our norms. The compact dependent on voluntary tax compliance no longer exists.

I wonder, then, should I continue to be part of a compact that is gone. Should I continue to voluntarily pay federal income taxes? While the government overwhelmingly depends on people like me participating in the compact, it does have enforcement mechanisms. I don’t want penalties or seized bank accounts and certainly not jail. However, the odds of any of those things happening are small. First, of course, conservatives have done a good job of decimating the IRS. There are fewer and fewer IRS personnel, and its computer and other IT infrastructure is out of date. The odds of bad things happening decrease further the more “the people” opt out of a compact that no longer exists. Imagine that ten thousand withheld their taxes. What if that number were a hundred thousand? Over 150 million tax returns are filed each year. If a fraction of one percent dropped out of the compact, the number would be a million non-taxpayers. The odds are hundreds of thousands to one that an individual would suffer any severe consequences. (Anyone giving up voluntary compliance should continue to pay state and other taxes and put the estimated federal income tax into an escrow account, not spend it.)

Will I refuse to pay my federal income tax? Probably not. At heart I am more than a bit of a coward. But if many others were not going to pay their taxes until the compact was re-established, I might join in.

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He Never Saw His Mother Again

The Brooklyn Eagle reported April 24,1938: “From the Disney Studios last week came confirmation of reports that ‘Bambi,’ the story of a deer, will be the 1938 feature production following the ‘Snow White’ experiment which shows signs, at the present moment, of earning a tidy $7,000,000.”

I realized yet again that my education is deficient. I am not well versed in classic children’s literature. I was surprised when, many years after seeing the movie, I learned that Walt Disney had not created the character Pinocchio for the 1940 eponymous film. In fact that marionette had been the inspiration of the Italian Carlo Collodi (the pen name of Carlo Lorenzini) who wrote The Adventures of Pinocchio in the 1880s. I did know that the movie The Wizard of Oz was based on a book by L. Frank Baum, but I was surprised to learn decades after first seeing the movie that there was not just one Oz book, but a series of more than a dozen.

Perhaps having realized about such gaps in my learning I should not have been surprised to find out about another one. The other day I was reading Laura by Vera Caspary, first serialized in Collier’s in 1942 and published in book form the next year (I read Laura in a collection entitled Women Crime Writers: Suspense Novels of the 1940s, edited by Sarah Weinman.) I was familiar with Laura from the outstanding film made of it in 1944 directed by Otto Preminger and starring Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, and Clifton Webb. I did not know and was surprised to learn that before the movie was made, the book had been adapted into a play that ran in London and New York. Early in the book, the wonderfully named Waldo Lydecker describes first meeting Laura Hunt at his apartment door and says she seemed as though “Bambi—or Bambi’s doe—had escaped from the forest and galloped up the eighteen flights to this apartment.” I did not think a note was needed for this reference, but Weinman provided one that told me that Bambi was the “deer fawn who is the protagonist of Felix Salten’s novel, published in 1928. Walt Disney’s animated feature was released in August 1942.” I found myself surprised that the movie Bambi was based on a novel. I did not know that.

That novel was Bambi: A Life in the Woods, or that was its title in the English version first published in the United States in 1928. The author was the Austrian Felix Salten, and the book was published in Austria as Bambi: Eine Lebensgeschicthe aus Dem Walde in 1923 after having been serialized in a Viennese magazine. Salten wrote for an adult audience, and in the U.S., Bambi was a Book-of-the-Month selection selling more than a half-million copies by the time Disney made the movie. It was praised in a forward by John Galsworthy, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature a few years later. Galsworthy said it “is a delicious book . . . not only for children but for those who are no longer so fortunate. . . . Felix Salten is a poet. He feels nature deeply. . . . Clear and illuminating, and in places very moving, it is a little masterpiece.”

Not surprisingly, while the movie follows the basic plot of the book, Disney wanted the film to be lighter than the often dark original. Thus, Thumper the Rabbit and Flower the Skunk were added to the animation. Nor surprisingly, Thumper’s most famous, ungrammatical, oft repeated, and widely parodied line—“If you can’t say somethin’ nice, don’t say nothin’ at all”—is not in the book. I don’t know who, if any, of the seven listed for the movie’s story direction, story adaptation, and story development should get credit for Thumper’s frequently ignored wisdom.

Not only was I surprised that there was a Bambi novel before there was a Bambi movie, I was surprised by a few things about the book’s author. Bambi: A Life in the Woods, sometimes seen as one of the earliest environmental novels, has been widely regarded, for good reasons, as a strong statement against hunting. Paradoxically, Felix Salten was an avid hunter. Second, even though Salten wrote the book as adult fiction, it almost immediately became beloved by children. It seems ironic then that today it is generally accepted that he was also the author of the book published in 1906 under a pseudonym, titled in English Josephine Mutzenbacher or The Story of a Viennese Whore, as Told by Herself. This book has been in print in both English and German since its first publication and has sold over three million copies. The “memoir” can be considered part of the canon of erotic literature and graphically portrays, largely without a plot, many, many sexual acts of all sorts, although I am glad to report no deer participate in the salacious activities. (I once asked my young Austrian friend whether she knew that Bambi was Austrian. She was not familiar with the book. When I said that the author Salten was also thought to be the author of an erotic book “Josephine Something-or-Other,” she immediately said Josephine Mutzenbacher. And again I thought that I should find more reasons to hang out with her.)

Bambi the deer may seem amusing, heartwarming, and brave, but Bambi: A Life in the Woods was seen as subversive by the Nazis. Bambi, along with other work by Felix Salten, who was Jewish, was banned by Hitler in 1936. Some saw the novel as an anti-fascist allegory and that the hunted deer were symbols of Jews in Germany. (More than deer are pursued as prey, however. Pheasants are killed, a hare is cruelly ensnared, and a darling of ducklings is orphaned.) The most famous hunting scene in which Bambi and his mother are separated during the carnage, still makes for tense, powerful reading providing, of course, great sympathy for the hunted. That chapter tersely concludes, “Bambi never saw his mother again.”

 If Salten intended an anti-fascist book, he was remarkably prescient since the novel was first serialized before the rise of Hitler, but, of course, in the mid-1930s, it could easily have been read that way. If the deer were stand-ins for Jews, the book could also have been seen as an anti-assimilationist warning.

This anti-assimilationist theme centers around Gobo, Bambi’s cousin, who doesn’t make it into the movie. Gobo is not the most intelligent deer in the woods. The fawn Gobo gets wounded by hunters and cannot make it to safety, and readers assume he dies. Then, after he is forgotten, he reappears. As it turns out, Gobo was taken in by a hunter and nursed back to health. The book is not clear why Gobo is now back in the forest, but Gobo now sings the praise of the hunter (all the hunters are labeled He or Him.)

The other deer, not surprisingly, label the hunter as evil, but Gobo maintains He is not wicked. Gobo tells how he was given hay and warm shelter by Him. Bambi and other deer have learned to sleep during the day because it is safer to forage at night and are careful about entering a clearing where danger from Him lurks. Gobo, however, has become trusting and does not follow these precautions. “I got to know that He wouldn’t hurt me. Why should I have been afraid? If He loves anybody or if anybody serves Him, He’s good to him. Wonderfully good! Nobody in the world can be as kind as He can.”

The deer notice, however, a strand of braided horsehair around Gobo’s neck. Gobo uneasily stammers, “That? Why, that’s part of the halter I wore. It’s His halter and it’s the greatest honor to wear His halter, it’s. . .” Silence descends with the old stag looking “at Gobo for a long time, piercingly and sadly. ‘You poor thing!’ he said softly at last, and turned and was gone.”

After He slaughters Gobo wandering in a clearing, Bambi recounts how Gobo said He was so good and powerful and that “He was good to Gobo.” In response to the old stag’s question, Bambi says that he is confused and not sure if he believes what Gobo said. “The old stag said slowly, ‘We must learn to live and be cautious.’” And when the old stag leads him to a dead hunter, Bambi realizes He is not all powerful and dies as we all do. Bambi eventually concludes, “There is Another who is over us all, over us and over Him.”

If the book is an allegory, it is certainly not one for the domestic, monogamous bliss portrayed in the movie. Bambi does fall in love with the beautiful Faline (apparently, we are to ignore the incestuous fact that Faline and Bambi are first cousins), but in the book it is not everlasting love that ends in the birth of heirs as in the movie. Bambi withdraws from Faline with the interesting statement: “But she no longer satisfied him completely.” Hmmm.

Its Jewish source led to the Nazi ban of Bambi: A Life in the Woods. I know of no attempt to ban the book in the United States, but I would not be surprised if there had been one since the American version had a communist source. Surprisingly, Bambi was translated into English by Whittaker Chambers, who is linked in history with Alger Hiss and the pumpkin papers, at a time when Chambers was a member of a communist party and was writing and editing for communist publications. Even so, I am not aware that the Red Scare that attacked so many cultural icons in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s ever denounced the book. I guess even McCarthy knew that he shouldn’t go after Disney’s beloved Bambi. If the fearmongers had wanted to, however, they could have attempted to say that the book was communist propaganda, for it seems to speak against private property and for a paradisiacal communalism. Near the beginning of the book, for example, the mother shows baby Bambi a woodland path, and he asks to whom the trail belongs. She replies, “To us.” She corrects Bambi’s misimpression and explains that she does not mean Bambi and her, but “to us deer.” It is held communally. And when Bambi worries that he will have to fight for food as the jays do, his mother reassures that such fighting will be unnecessary “because there is enough for all of us.”

Ultimately, however, the book praises individualism, not communitarianism. Near the novel’s end, Bambi remembers his first encounter with his elder’s wisdom. “When he was still a child the old stag had taught him that you must live alone. Then and afterward the old stag had revealed much wisdom and many secrets to him. But of all his teachings this had been the most important: you must live alone. If you wanted to preserve yourself, if you understood existence, if you wanted to attain wisdom, you had to live alone.” At the book’s conclusion, Bambi tries to pass this precept to another fawn.

Perhaps Salten is suggesting that as attractive as communalism might be (with its promise of peace and plenty), it’s a fantasy. The real world is a dog-eat-dog world (dogs are villains in this book), and in order to survive, you’d better watch your back, believe in no one but yourself, depend on no one but yourself. Not exactly Disney’s take.

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First Sentences

“This was me when I was 10 years old. This was in 1980.” Marjane Satrapi, The Complete Persepolis.

“This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.” William Goldman, The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure.

“’Is this the home of Tony Horwitz?’” Geraldine Brooks, Memorial Days.

“The year that Buttercup was born, the most beautiful woman in the world was a French scullery maid named Annette.” S. Morgenstern, The Princess Bride.

“Even now, nearly a century after her death, Marie Curie remains the only female scientist whom most people can name.” Dava Sobel, The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science.

“Fezzik chased the madman up the mountain, the madman who carried the most precious thing, for Fezzik, ever to be on earth, the kid herself, Buttercup’s Baby.” S. Morgenstern, Buttercup’s Baby: S. Morgenstern’s Glorious Examination of Courage Matched Against the Death of the Heart.

“I was performing since I was just a little boy.” Al Pacino, Sonny Boy.

“I must have died, the woman thought.” Dan Brown, The Secret of Secrets.

“On July 27, 1791, some four months after Alexander Hamilton and Federalist-dominated Congress passed ‘the Whiskey Tax,’ the frontier offered an organized response for the first time.” Brady J. Crytzer, The Whiskey Rebellion: A Distilled History of an American Crisis.

“Lucrezia is taking her seat at the long dining table, which is polished to a watery gleam and spread with dishes, inverted cups, a woven circlet of fir.” Margaret O’Farrell, The Marriage Portrait.

“The story begins with sheep.” John Butman & Simon Targett, New World, Inc.: The Making of America by England’s Merchant Adventurers.

“Lilacs, rain, a hint of bitter chocolate: Stella sniffed the air as she entered the small shop, enjoying the soft golden light that enfolded her.” Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel.

“It looked like war.” Jon Meacham, American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House.

“The day Ruthie went missing, the blackflies seemed to be especially hungry.” Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers.

“On January 21, 1989, the day after George H. W. Bush’s inauguration, David Duke, the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, a neo-Nazi, and the head of an organization called the National Association for the Advancement of White People, finished first in an open primary for Louisiana’s eighty-first legislative district.” John Ganz, When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s.

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Snippets

Charlie Kirk said, “George Floyd was a scumbag. Does that mean he deserved to die? No, of course not.” Replace “George Floyd” with “Charlie Kirk.” What would the outcry be?

Pete Hegseth wants “warriors” in this man’s army. Apparently, according to Hegseth, warriors don’t have beards. I watch Sunday football, and many of the players have quite luxurious facial growths. Apparently, at least according to Hegseth, I was wrong if I thought of them as manly men. They have beards. They are wusses. A tradition in the NHL is for players not to shave as long as they are in the playoffs. Once again, they are pansies, not warriors. Hegseth wants lethality in our armed forces. Nothing produced more deaths in our history than the Civil War. After hearing Hegseth, I don’t know how the North won with the bearded Ulysses S. Grant in charge. I thought he was a warrior, but apparently just another wuss. Maybe his side won because the Confederates had bearded Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. Those two must have been really big pansies if they lost to Grant. Certainly, the fairy Custer, with his hair, could not be in Hegseth’s army. And in World War II, Bill Mauldin’s Willie and Joe, who were on the front lines for the entire war, were never clean shaven. If they were still around, they might like to know that they are not wanted in Hegseth’s army. So they can just go home.

In the wake of Kirk’s death, I ask, not for the first time, What is a Christian?

Perhaps if General Grant and General Eisenhower had spent less time on military strategy, tactics, and logistics and more on pullups, pushups, and sit-ups, the Civil War and World War II would have ended sooner. I wondered, too, if the generals who were flown from all four corners of the world to Virginia (at enormous expense, one might add) might have had better things to do than to sit in a lecture on sartorial issues and calisthenics.

At my new residence I am about to start a six-week course on the musical theater. The first week, we will study the seminal Oklahoma! When I watched a video of it, I realized that I knew most of the music, but I have no idea how. I have never seen a live production of the musical and only clips of the movie. When I was a boy, our family did not have a record player much less a hi-fi. We did have a radio, but I don’t believe I ever heard show tunes out of it. Still, I know much of the score. How do we learn the stuff we do?

Pete Hegseth seems not to want women in the armed forces. He certainly does not want transgender men. I wonder what his reaction would be to what Tony Horwitz relates in his Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War (1998). As a result of an automobile accident in 1911, a union Civil War hero was discovered to be a woman. She was then sent to an insane asylum and forced to wear skirts, in which she was clumsy. She died as the result of a hip injury after a fall. Horwitz reports that at least 400 women disguised as men fought in the Civil War.

When I was eight or nine, the news was filled with UFO sightings. I wanted to spot one and spent much time in the backyard gazing upward. I was getting discouraged when one day as I looked over the Schneidermann house I saw what appeared to be a rotating, silvery disk. It came closer and hovered almost silently about fifty feet off the ground at the back of our property. A hatch slid open, and a creature came down on a beam of light. It got to the grass just outside the kohlrabi patch, but I could not discern any features. It was fully covered in hair. I could not tell if there was a head, or arms, or feet because of all the hair. But there was what appeared to be a hypodermic needle coming out of where the head might have been. Father must have seen the lights because he was standing just behind me. With my voice that had not broken, I asked, “What is that?” “My last-born son,” he intoned, “that is definitely a furry with the syringe on the top.”

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Back to the College

(A Guest Post by the Spouse)

The spouse and I have recently moved to a continuing care retirement community. It’s located in a rather magnificent old building that looks like the library of a university campus. Apartments spread out from the main building, and the grounds are extensive with fountains and plazas and an arboretum. It reminds me of a well-tended high school or a small college campus. But it’s more than just the architecture that is reminiscent of school.

It’s also the students…I mean the residents. We are a smallish class of about 250. We live in the dorms…rather nice apartments with full kitchens, and we meet each other in the halls going to and from “class.” Today in the morning, for example, there was political science, but this afternoon there is home economics (we’re learning to knit). Tomorrow I have swimming first thing in the morning. (Ugh! I hate morning gym class.) Wednesday is art. The teacher is excellent, but I’m pulling a C in that class. Thursday, English (book club). Friday, French conversation.

After all these activities we meet in the dining room for dinner, though a lot of people like to eat in their dorm rooms. Lots of socializing goes on in the dining room. Topics that have come up in class are often on the agenda. Conversation at dinner often finds its way to talk of children and grandchildren, oh, and health. We are all pretty fit (given all those swimming and yoga classes), but we still have a full panoply of “issues.”

There’s not a lot of gossip (or maybe I’m just not in on it), but I have noticed that John and Marie are often together, as are Liz and Bob. I think they must be considered “an item.” I have seen other couples holding hands (!). There are nerds and jocks, musicians and artists. It’s an eclectic bunch.

We are all pretty style conscious…at least in the shoe department. It appears that high heels for the girls are not comme il faut. Walking shoes — preferably slip-in Skechers — are the order of the day. We walk a lot (the campus is extensive), so comfortable shoes are a necessity. No one would dare break that convention.

So after all these years, the spouse and I find ourselves back in school. It’s a new experience, and it takes some getting used to.

Sorry. Gotta run. I’m a little behind on my English assignment.

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Three Modern Free Speech Issues

I was asked by a leader of a current events discussion group to comment on some present free speech issues. I briefly commented on several.

1 . The first is the issue of self-censorship by media and other entities because of a concern about retributive governmental actions. Jimmy Kimmel is a prime example. Following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Kimmel made comments on his late-night show, which were not disrespectful of TurningPointUSA leader, but included some misinformation regarding the political affiliation of the killer. Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed Chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), responded by saying: “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies [Kimmel’s employers] can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

Kimmel was promptly suspended by ABC, a subsidiary of Disney. It was certainly reasonable for Disney to think it was being threatened by the Chair of the FCC. Over-the-air networks like ABC require licenses from the FCC. Moreover, two companies owning affiliates that air ABC programs were negotiating a merger that needed to be approved by the FCC. They could see the FCC Chair’s statement as a threat to that approval.

Though seemingly unrelated to free speech, these (not so) veiled threats have a direct impact on free speech. Sometimes even without a threat free speech is affected because of potential government action. We saw this dynamic in action with the $16 million settlement by Paramount Global (owner of CBS) of the Trump lawsuits against CBS. At the time of the settlement with Trump, Paramount had an $8 billion merger on the table that required government approval. What does this have to do with free speech, one might ask. Answer: Media companies (no company) should not be required to cave to the petulant posturing of a president in order to secure government approval for their business. And yet, Paramount Global felt, no doubt, that it had no choice but to cave to the political caprices of the president.

Perhaps there has always been a concern that free speech would result in government retribution. But it is more concerning now. First, the open vindictiveness of president Trump has changed things. In addition, the playing field has changed dramatically because the Supreme Court is consciously allowing the president more power that increases the possibility and feasibility of presidential retribution. Here’s how: Agencies like the FCC or the Federal Trade Commission or the Securities and Exchange Commission were meant to be independent of the president. Ninety years ago, the Supreme Court held that commissioners on such agencies could not be removed at the whim of the president, but only “for cause.” The Supreme Court has not officially overruled that precedent, but it effectively has done so. The Supreme Court has now allowed Trump to “temporarily” remove commissioners while litigation goes on about whether the removals have been lawful. It is expected that the 1930s precedent will be formally overruled this year. In other words, the previously independent agencies will no longer be independent but must answer directly to the president. Thus, companies who need agency approval for something will naturally be concerned that they will be punished for actions that displease Trump. This is affecting free speech in ways it was not before.

An aside: Might conservatives have a point in the Jimmy Kimmel affair? Four over-the-air late- night hosts use the public airwaves: Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Myers, and Jimmy Kimmel. All can be characterized as anti-Trump. What if all were the comedy equivalent of Fox News? How would liberals react?

2. The second is another, non-Kimmel free-speech issue occurring in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

A recent newspaper article states that over 145 people have been fired or disciplined by their employers for comments about Charlie Kirk. These data are from public records, but there may be many more that haven’t been reported. Often the comments have been innocuous. For example, an employee of a public university commented on her private Facebook page, “If you think Charlie Kirk was a wonderful person, we can’t be friends.” She also said that she believed in the Resurrection and was praying for his soul. She was fired for these comments.

All the firings of employees for their comments while not on the job raise free speech issues, but not all raise First Amendment issues.  The First Amendment applies only when the government does something that limits speech. Thus, it comes into play when a public employer disciplines public employees for their speech. However, there are few legal restraints on private employers who often can fire for any reason.

But something new is also operating in this arena. Online armies are scanning for social media comments to get people fired. Those who have made comments critical of Kirk are often doxed and flooded with ugly and threatening messages scaring them and others into silence. The online scrollers want to punish and prevent speech they don’t like.

While the private firings and the doxxing may not raise First Amendment concerns, they do raise important free speech concerns. We need more discussion of how free workers should be to express their views while not on the job, and, further, how to prevent some of the terrible excesses of social media and the internet.

3. The new Pentagon leadership says it will require credentialed journalists at the military headquarters to sign a pledge to refrain from reporting information that has not been authorized for release — including unclassified information. Reporters, in effect, can publish only press releases. Journalists who don’t abide by the policy risk losing credentials that provide access to the Pentagon.

I asked a friend who had been a media attorney whether he knew of similar past directives. He says this appears to be unprecedented.

He did point out that this administration (and others) have cut off reporters who published stuff the president didn’t like. (Witness the AP and the “Gulf of America” controversy). But these restrictions on free speech were relatively mild. They only limited the access of individual reporters. They were not a blanket restriction on what can be reported.

The Hegseth directive for the first time tries to make those covering the Pentagon into something like state media. You may publish only what the government authorizes. We have not had this Pravda-like restriction before. If it stands up in court, it would be a titanic and dangerous change in how the government, the press, and the people interact with each other.

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My Amish Amigos

Summer ends. My stay in Northeast Pennsylvania also ends. And so also ends my weekly interactions with Amish people.

I did not meet an Amish person until I was into my sixth or seventh decade. I believe there are Amish in Wisconsin but not where I grew up. None were at my college nor in the cities where I lived. And while parts of Pennsylvania have concentrations of Amish, they did not live in the parts of the state where we have a summer home.

After we had the summer house for several years, an Amish family started a weekly market in a Methodist church parking lot down the hill from us. It was a godsend. Summer is not summer without good, fresh, ripe tomatoes and corn, and that was not always easily available to us. Farm country is twenty miles north of our home and twenty-five miles south, but that’s too far to go for a good tomato. The land around us is hilly and rocky. We see no farms—no peapods or grazing Jerseys. There are no farm stands, and the desired corn and tomatoes were often hard to find. Until the Amish came.

At the beginning, an Amish man was in charge. After a while, I started chatting with him each week. I learned that he and the girls who accepted payments were part of the same family who lived on a farm about 120 miles west. Over time, our brief conversations expanded from the weather and the ripeness of the produce to something slightly more personal. He learned that I had been a lawyer, and I learned that besides farming he did construction. Up to this point, my Amish knowledge had been that they dressed in nineteenth century farm clothes and that their religion forbade them from having electricity in their homes. Of course, they could not drive cars and got around by horse and buggy. When the Amish man told me he did construction, my image was of muscle-powered saws and hand-cranked drills, but my acquaintance lit up when he told me how much he enjoyed using tools powered by compressed air.

My Amish knowledge expanded further, to my surprise, during a six-month Florida stay near Sarasota. I was startled by seeing a boy and girl walking near the waterfront in what I took to be Amish garb. Then in various parts of town, I saw several men with beards and suspenders and women in long dresses and distinctive head coverings that signaled Amish. In driving around town, a mile or two from the Gulf, I found an enclave of modest houses on narrow streets with families in Amish attire getting around on three-wheel bikes. This was an Amish settlement. These Amish came each winter on big buses and stayed until it was planting time up north.

Sarasota had several places that proclaimed themselves Amish restaurants. They had good comfort food. The pie was always outstanding. When I left one of them, I stopped in the gift shop. I found a rack of paperbacks, many of which had a heavily clothed, attractive young woman on the cover. I read the back cover of one and found that it was a romance about Amish young people. This was not my usual reading, but I bought a few.

The prose was repetitive and at about the eighth-grade level. The characterizations were simple. The stories were pleasant with love winning out without clothes being shed. I have since learned that in some publishing circles these are called Bonnet Rippers. They are not written by the Amish, but by evangelical Christians who claim to have Amish friends who helped them understand the Amish culture. The Amish, I am told, are mystified by these romances and do not buy them. However, a lot of other people do. One source said that the top three writers of Amish romances have sold over 24 million books (!).

I enjoyed the romances because I felt that I learned something about the Amish culture even though, I am told, the books often get the Amish theology wrong. My limited knowledge of Amish life expanded five years ago when Amos, who was then sixteen, started coming to the market along with his sister Annie. (Trying to learn more, I also read Steven M. Nolt, A History of the Amish.) Almost every time we meet, Amos and I chat. We laugh frequently often as a result of making fun of each other. Early on, he asked where I lived. I said that while I had a summer home in Pennsylvania, I had lived in Brooklyn for a long time. “City slicker,” he said with a smile. I asked if he had ever been to a city. He said only the outskirts and mentioned some New Jersey suburbs. Even so, he was quite sure that he did not like cities: “Too much hustle and bustle. Too much activity. Too much rushing.” One time, I told him I was going to a Yankees game the following week. He had never seen a baseball stadium. He could not comprehend that 45,000 people were going to be in one location, but he proudly said that he had been to a gathering of hundreds when he attended a horse auction in Harrisburg the previous winter.

I soon learned that there was not an Amish religion. While all Amish shunned aspects of modern life such as electricity in the homes, did not drive motor vehicles, and wore plain clothes, many practices differed by congregation, which are small, often no more than a few dozen people. Some, for example, but not all could have a telephone booth on their property, but no one could have a phone in the house.

The home is the center not only of the family but also of worship. The Amish do not have church buildings. They worship in the houses of the faithful on a rotating basis. The homes are much more comfortable than I had first thought. Amos showed me pictures of his family’s property taken from a drone. It was a lovely farm with a modern looking house. Amos pointed to a window and said that it was his room, which he shared with his younger brother Ben, short for Benuel, a common Amish name. The house, which has indoor plumbing, was kept warm with a wood stove. The kitchen did not have electricity, but a modern oven and refrigerator were run off propane.

Of course, the Amish do not live a monkish life secluded from the world. They have many regular interactions with the “English,” their term for those who are not Amish. And, of course, they pick up stuff from the modern world as a result. Amos, for example, claims to know a lot of country songs. He does not have a radio, but he is driven to the market, a construction site, or elsewhere by an “English” driver. I asked when he rode in the truck whether he listened to the radio. Amos said that they were not supposed to, but then he paused, smiled, and said, “We leave it up to the driver.” I asked if he plugged his ears if the radio played, and Annie, his sister, laughed. Apparently country music predominates on the trips, and thus Amos’s song knowledge. I said that an Amish can’t sing country songs since they are all about how I got drunk last night, and my woman left me. Amos smiled. Sadie, another sister, laughed.      

Of course, to this English the Amish folkways often seem inconsistent and contradictory. For example, electricity is supposedly forbidden, but Amos uses battery-powered tools, and my market purchases are toted up on a calculator. They can’t drive a motor vehicle, but they can ride in them. Women do not have buttons but secure their clothes with pins while men button theirs. Amos cannot smoke a cigarette or pipe, but he can smoke a cigar. Amish have beards, but only after they are married. But, come to think of it, every religion I know has inconsistencies, contradictions, and hypocrisies.

The Amish may look dour and humorless, but I have found them to be charming and even impish people. (As I was paying for a green tomato at the weekly Amish market, I asked Annie, who collects the money, if she had ever eaten a fried green tomato. She hesitated but then replied, “Yes.” I said, “Just one?” She answered, “There are better foods.” “Like what?” I asked. “Just about anything,” she responded.)  This is remarkable for a group that regularly draws stares and snickers and misinformation. In my summer community, many say the market people are false Amish, or Famish. Some say this because the Amish don’t grow everything they sell. They are supposedly non-Amish hucksters, but these “English” are not very observant. Signs are always placed in front of bins saying “homegrown” or “local” often with even more specificity such as “Eastern shore.” To the even mildly attentive, there is no attempt to pass off bananas as an Amish product. These critics have no explanation as to why non-Amish would wear those heavy clothes on a hot July day and pretend to be Amish.

I have also been “authoritatively” told by several friends that those who run our weekly market can’t be Amish because they come in the produce-carrying truck driven by a non-Amish person. Perhaps, these “knowledgeable” people continue, they are Mennonites but definitely not Amish because Amish can’t ride in a motor vehicle. I told Amish Amos about these conversations. For one of the few times since I met him, he was speechless with open-mouthed bewilderment. I said, “I don’t know much about you guys, but many know even less.” He nodded.

I don’t know whether I will see Amos next year. His family runs a market five days a week, and he used to work at all of them. Now it is only ours. He works construction the other days. Perhaps next year it will be housebuilding all week. I do know that I will not be seeing his sister Nanny next year. She is getting married in October, and once wedded the young women no longer work at the markets. I asked Nanny how many are coming to her wedding. She replied, “400 are invited but probably not that many will come.” At first that number seemed large, but then I remembered meeting Barbie, short for Barbara, a few years ago. I asked if she was the sister of Annie, then the regular checkout person who, having married, is now gone. She said no, that she was a cousin. I asked how many cousins she had. Annie and she exchanged sly glances, almost blushing. It was clear that neither had a definitive answer or perhaps even a good estimate. Barbie then suggested that they had more than a hundred. Annie, I know, has eight siblings. The wedding and festivities, like church services, will be held in the family home.

I strongly hope that the Amish market will be back next year. I want those fresh tomatoes and corn. I hope that Amos will be back. I like him, and if he is not there, I suppose I will have to break in a new Amish friend.