June 2020

Why I’m Late

Every day for the last two weeks, I’ve been struggling to write about what’s going on in America and the world, trying to get it as right as I can before sending it to you. This first item for the June PY-O-MY Letter/Weinberg House Organ has been rewritten multiple times as the situation was evolving so quickly.  My perception of the realities changed constantly.  Nothing we write or produce is ever “Done.”  We do what we can and keep going on to the next.

If I HAD a boss or a contract that forced me to get it to you on the first day of the month (as I have 76 consecutive months!) I would have sent it June 1.  But, so much was uncertain then.  Now, for better or worse, here it is.

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Perfect Storm, 2020 — Déjà vu, 1968

For me, these last two weeks have been more like 1968 than anytime since. 1968:  Martin Luther King was killed in April and cities erupted; Bobby Kennedy was shot in June; in August, the indelibly radicalizing Democratic convention Chicago; then the re-election in November of President Richard Milhaus Nixon. He promised “Law and Order,” (not the TV show that started in 1990,) no more “riots,” a severe crackdown on crime with strict enforcement of drug laws. It was in many ways, a declaration of war on Black Americans, especially those most threatening to white power, the Black Panthers. They were murdered and harassed all over the country under a master plan devised by the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover. For me, it hit home when Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party, was murdered in his bed at 4:30 in the morning by Chicago officers. His apartment was 20 blocks from where I was living. 

In 1968 and the four years that followed, we were splintered into the “Generation Gap.” Politically, similar to now, we felt forced to answer the question, “Which side are you on?” and to prove it by our actions. We were spurred on by exciting new politics, music, art, the underground press, sex and drugs. Smoking marijuana turned us into clusters of outlaws. It was the start of personal portable video and the first time we were free to create our own TV and screen images. Today, that technology has emerged into citizen journalism, the prime force responsible for convincing the world that police kill and riot. 

Millions of us actually believed that we had the power to generate a revolution: in values, ethics, education, racial and gender equality, criminal justice and ultimately leading to peace and love in the country and the world.

It didn’t happen. Like most idealistic hopeful revolutions, our dreams were shattered. During the next 20 years of Nixon-Ford-Carter-Reagan-Bush the first, the fervor and passion of 1968 and the early 1970s were systematically eliminated.  In government, corporate dominance, education, and most especially racism, it was business as usual. Nothing fundamentally changed.    Inequality in income and opportunity grew.  Police brutality and disregard for black lives became more prevalent and led to massive incarceration, especially of inner-city black males. It was a time of ongoing global war-making and arms sales, mass murderers, declining public education for the underclass, police impunity and their militarization in the cities.  Corporations prospered while their profits-over-humanity diminished the quality of everyone’s lives.

Finally, after 52 years, we’ve reached a tipping point. Maybe.

2020.  It has been a perfect storm. Combine more plague deaths and illnesses than in a century, with more people losing their jobs in the shortest time ever.  As millions were forced to stay home because of COVID-19, stores, offices and services mostly disappeared for three months. Even with the future unknowable and business horrible, the stock market continued at or near record highs as the rich got richer. Cops killed uncounted African Americans on the streets and in their homes. It became undeniable and explosive after billions of people around the world saw the video of a white Minneapolis cop putting his knee on George Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and forty-six seconds and killing him while three other policemen just stood and watched.  More than 200 million cell phones have changed the entire landscape, totally exposing ugly truths.  It will eventually lead to redefining the role of police in our society.  The movement to “Defund the Police,” which I see as restructuring all local law enforcement and prison budgets, will be a lasting legacy of these days of protest and unity.

The COVID pandemic has coincided with and brought about drastic new realities: millions of forced unemployed, more hunger than in decades, pent-up anger and frustration, and uncertain futures.  Add to this mix the video exposure of police murders.  The result was the most widespread rebellion against white racism, police abuse and the criminal justice system in our history.

All this happened in the context of the least sensitive and most incompetent federal government, certainly in my lifetime and arguably ever. 

I have no doubt that there is a small group on the streets whose primary interest is to create chaos. They have succeeded in systematically inflicting property damage, smashing windows and enabling looters in dozens of cities. I see them as opportunist white guys who have piggybacked on the genuine but overwhelmingly peaceful millions who support and have demonstrated for a new era, stemming from the Black Rights Matter movement. 

Like everyone else, I don’t know where it will go from here.  I do know the last few weeks are unprecedented and overwhelming.  Yes, I feel hopeful being part of the outpouring of masses of peaceful and committed people on the streets all over the globe, when the wiser course would be to stay home to avoid the pandemic.  But there’s no way to be sure No Peace, No Justice will prevail and real change will happen or if we’re headed for the same old-same old.

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We Missed It

As many of you know, Eleanor and I were in Australia in late February, March and April.  We left before COVID cases, deaths and quarantine shut everything down in the USA. It was the trip of a lifetime.  We were gone twice as long as we had planned in wonderful places with civilized people. We returned to Chicago for a few days and have been at her farm in luscious green Kentucky the past month. Coronavirus cases and deaths in the whole state are about 10% of those in Chicago (Cook County) alone. Populations are comparable. Our bubble is about 20 miles from downtown Louisville, the #47 market (ADI) in the country. It’s a new experience for me.  I’ve lived most of my life in the top three—Chicago #3, NY #1 and LA #2, with stints in #5 San Francisco and #10 Detroit.

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The Local Report

It’s rural where we are, but Louisville is an old city with all the plusses and minuses of urban America.  In many ways, even though it’s in the Upper South, it feels less segregated than Chicago.  During ten days of demonstrations and downtown property destruction, police and national guard stupidly used pepper spray and rubber bullets on unarmed civilians who were peacefully demonstrating. At least one local, David McAtee, owner of YaYa’s BBQ, was killed. His modest restaurant was open feeding police and neighbors after curfew. Kentucky National Guardsmen dispersed the customers in his place with gas pellets and when he came out of his restaurant, also his home, with a gun, they shot him dead immediately.  No body cameras were turned on.

The primary focus of protestors here has been Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African-American Louisville emergency medical technician who was fatally shot in the middle of the night on March 13, 2020.

Three Louisville Metro Police Department officers in civilian clothes smashed her apartment door and fired 20 rounds. She was immediately pummeled and killed. Eight bullets entered her body. Police claimed it was a drug bust, but no drugs of any kind were found. They had a “No-Knock” court order allowing them to enter without warning.  After days of protest, they were finally suspended but still haven’t been charged with any crime.

Protestors demanded they should be jailed for life. Yesterday, June 11, the Louisville Metro Council passed an ordinance banning no-knock raids and requiring officers to identify themselves and give occupants sufficient time to respond.  The new law also requires bodycams to be turned on before warrants are served, even if there is a court order to enter the premises.  A small step, but justice won’t be served until the killing police officers are tried and convicted.

The outrage about Breonna Taylor wasn’t public or large-scale in Louisville until after the George Floyd murder. Demonstrations and prayers meetings have been continuous, day and night. As in most other cities, the majority of street demonstrators for Breonna and Black Lives Matter are white.  They have been on the streets daily for almost two weeks.

Kentucky politics is fascinating.  Both Senators (McConnell and Rand Paul) and the long-time mayor of Louisville (Fischer) either can’t or don’t want to provide the leadership required to help create the change that so many are demanding.  Voters aren’t likely to ditch Mitch in November, but it could happen if there’s a resounding national Trump dump. It would be good for the commonwealth, the country and the world to send them both back where they came from (Queens and Alabama.)

IMHO, even in places with decent and intelligent elected leaders, a whole lot of intended change has been snuffed out by the powerful and greedy who have enormous control. Officeholders are beholden to them. The police generally serve and protect the interests of people with money and power.  Those are the lives that really matter to them.

We are experiencing a crisis of values. Corporate and electronic media generally choose not to rock the boat. The commercial financial interests that dominate our lives, like  Amazon, Disney, Facebook, Apple, Google and Microsoft, are no more interested in society’s well-being in 2020 than CBS, NBC and ABC were when they were the dominant mediums. They all make billions from election-year advertising.

Are capitalism and democracy compatible? My mother was a person of ideas. She spent a good chunk of her last years reading and writing and questioning if it’s possible to have and preserve democracy in America’s capitalist system. The jury is still out on that, 20 years later.

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Friendship

It’s what I was planning to write about this month before the external storms hit in full force.

I’m lucky. I have several good guy-friends.  [GGF]
Men who care about me as much as I do them.
One from day camp Ge-Bo-Jo-To in 1951.
And a few from Ravinia School and Highland Park High School.
Five or six from four years form college in Ann Arbor.
And, since 1966, only SIX “new” lifetime friends.
I remain in almost weekly touch with most of the GGFs, though four aren’t around anymore.

In April, I got to spend some wonderful time with GGF Russell Porter, who now lives on the island of Tasmania (off the southern coast of Australia). I first met him in 2001 when we both taught documentary at Columbia College. He’s a native Aussie who has lived in at least ten places. Each time and place, he connected on deep levels with dozens of GGFs. And as many or more Devoted Female Friends (DFFs).

He spent ten years as a professor in Chicago (where we connected for life), two adventuring on a raft in the Amazon, one or two with Aborigines in Australia, plus many years in Adelaide, Melbourne, Cuba, Alicante, Spain, and more. He made 30 or 40 documentaries in dozens of countries and has taught uncounted college kids for the last 20 years, many of whom still write him to say what a strong influence he had on their lives.

He has the quickest wit and sense of humor of anyone I ever met.
(Perhaps except Mitchell Klein who died 40 years ago at 30-something.)

Eleanor had never met Russell before we were with him for a week.  She immediately joined his legion of DFFs.  We laughed constantly and learned about Australia and the world every minute we were together.

Eleanor was smitten: “He has a magical personality.  Anyone who meets him wants to stay connected with him forever.  For someone with such huge physical problems, he is completely committed to other people’s enjoyment rather than his own situation.  He’s a love…a joy to be with and his knowledge, wit and curiosity know no bounds.”

Ah mate, I agree 100%. Seeya soon. I hope we can keep on Skyping a few times a week for at least another 20 years!

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Quiz Section

The photo quiz last month turned out to be Internet quicksand.  The picture I asked about was a typical high school yearbook shot I found on Pinterest.  It was labeled “Mother Teresa.”  It seemed unlikely, but I googled her and it showed up there also. Elan Soltes and a few other PY-O-MY readers had answers other than Mother Teresa. Elan thought it was Saint Emma Galgani, the Italian mystic. I couldn’t find a picture of her that corresponded to the quiz photo. I don’t know who was in that picture. Your editor regrets having gotten involved with it at all and apologizes to everyone, including saints and sinners.

I do know the answer to this quick quiz:

Who is Bluetooth technology named after?

(answer at the bottom of the page, under the signature)

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Another County Heard From

Keith Runyon is a Louisville friend I respect a lot.  For dozens of years, he was the editorial page editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, a progressive island in a sea of southern conservatism and racism. And one of the best newspapers in America.  He has retired, but this week I got his email putting in perspective the sad state of affairs in his city and the country:

I don’t know what to think. I think the stars are in alignment for catastrophe. Trump and Mitch… Police confusion and community frustration over unemployment, COVID-19, Republican efforts to undermine democratic elections, inherent racism in all white people and fear that results among black people.

As a Louisvillian, I have witnessed much of this in 1975 as a young reporter. Then similar elements conspired: racial fears, unemployment and recession, inflation, Watergate, Vietnam and white fears of losing power.

Seeing  [this week’s] devastation along Fourth Street, at WHAS, etc., I began to cry. I also think it is a kind of crisis of faith, in God, in institutions, in science, and in government (including police).

The advantage of being almost 70 is perspective…today’s front page [of Courier-Journal] 80 years ago today, reminds me that we as a nation have faced far, far worse. Holocaust, Nazis, Depression, Jim Crow and lynchings, World domination by Fascists in Italy, Germany, Spain and Japan.

That doesn’t make any of this easier, but it does help us to cope, and to hope.

Love to all, Keith

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Maggie Comes to Kentucky

Only one grandchild picture this month: Maggie Jane Kliner who had her first horseback ride when she, Charlie and their parents Anna and Kicker visited Kentucky last weekend. She comes from a long line of riders (though it skipped two generations) from her grandmother and great-grandfather.

Her joy in the midst of the heaviness of today puts a special glow on being around. Have a safe and fun month. Seeya July 1.

[Answer: “Bluetooth” technology was named after tenth-century king Harold “Bluetooth” Gormisson.  He united Denmark and Norway, just like wireless technology united computers and mobile phones. —THEFACTSITE.COM]