Brett Aresco

[brettaresco]

The End of Open Secrets

NOTE: I initially wrote this column in March of this year, when the Michael Jackson documentary was released and Patriots owner Robert Kraft was arrested. In finally publishing, I’ve updated with minor changes and an addendum concerning another poster boy for this phenomenon, Jeffrey Epstein.

“I’m shocked to find that there is gambling going on in here.”

-Captain Renault, Casablanca

If, as Martin Luther King, Jr. said (while paraphrasing abolitionist minister Theodore Parker), “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice,” most would say we are in the long part. It has become fashionable amongst the eloquent, the empathetic, and the erudite to say that our world is in peril. I won’t wholly discount this assertion, especially while John Barron is the president, but bear with me as I briefly consider the positive aspects of our confounding timeline.

In many ways, we live in a golden age. Not only are we experiencing a time of relative prosperity, peace, and liberty in much of the world, but many of us enjoy an existence in which information (and, thus, some measure of power) is ubiquitous. Sure, we have our issues – the United States’ abdication of its place as moral and geopolitical leader of the world, for starters – and the information we consume is not always of the utmost veracity. But even still… the march of non-fake news has spurred uprisings to overthrow corrupt regimes, liberated marginalized groups, and shed light on some of the most troubling and immediate issues of our time.

Which leads me to the subject of this column: open secrets.

I am an actor. I run in some acting circles that can, at times, form Venn diagrams with larger, more famous circles. I know people who know people, I know people who become people, and I know people who are people. In talking to many of these people, for as long as I can remember, they all maintained one thing:

Kevin Spacey was a pervert.

Though I never knew the extent of his perversions, it was always whispered that he liked to take advantage of other actors. He liked his boys young, some said, and he wasn’t afraid to use his position to get what he wanted. The important matter wasn’t that he was gay – that was an open secret of an entirely benign nature – but that he was very likely a predator.

Despite these rumors, it was not until the #metoo movement unshackled thousands of brave women (and men) from the forced secrecy of past indignities that Kevin Spacey was formally accused and, to an extent, confronted with the consequences of his actions. His hit show was canceled, he was effectively blacklisted from Hollywood, and he was investigated by various authorities. His open secret became an open door through which he could be dragged, kicking and screaming, to justice.

Though Spacey’s downfall commenced just last year, it feels like it happened much longer ago, amidst a raft of other scandals involving such high-profile figures as Harvey Weinstein, R. Kelly, and, well, our current president. Aside from the fact that the latter still operates with impunity… why bring all this up again now?

Because Spacey’s is the case that first leaps to mind when I think of a growing, overdue, and enormously important trend- a trend more recently personified by the fates of three other powerful men: Robert Kraft, Michael Jackson, and Jeffrey Epstein.

Earlier this year, as you’ll no doubt remember, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft was arrested and charged with two counts of solicitation for frequenting a Florida massage parlor where trafficked women were coerced into performing sex acts for money (or, in common parlance, “giving happy endings”).

Who among us has not heard of (or – dare I ask? – received) a happy ending? It’s been joked about in popular culture for years, and it has become so ingrained in our collective consciousness that massage parlors with curtains over the windows and secretive back rooms are almost always assumed – rightly or wrongly – to provide other “services.” A few years ago, when I won a fantasy sports league, someone joked that I should spend my winnings at an establishment that online reviewers have deemed one of the best “rub & tug” places in New York City. If the person suggesting it had ever been I will not here speculate, but I’m sure he thought it less an honest suggestion than an innocent joke. As distasteful as the suggestion was, he was playing on a widely-known (and seemingly harmless) open secret.

But is it harmless? As is finally being scrutinized in the wake of the Robert Kraft debacle, through which several other high-profile men in finance (and even the boyfriend of an LPGA golfer) were exposed, a large element of this massage parlor subculture centers on human trafficking. Quite often, the women brought to these “businesses” from other countries have their movements controlled, their lives monitored, and their jobs bound to unpayable debts that keep them servicing wealthy Johns like Kraft for the rest of their lives. It’s a horrible, dehumanizing existence… but one about which many superficially know and joke. Whether they choose to look the other way or not is their business – luckily, there are many diligent human trafficking task forces that make arrests like those in this sweeping Florida sting – but for years this practice has persisted as an open secret. It was not widely exposed until one of the most powerful men in America brushed up against it… and even now, in our focus-starved culture, it may yet recede once again into the background. (Sure enough, as I update this just four months later, it already has).

Whether or not the case of the “rub & tug” maintains its capacity for public outrage, it has again exposed a through line in many of the open secrets that we as a society choose not to confront: powerful people getting away with horrible things. Shortly after Kraft’s arrest, of course, came the release of a revealing and controversial documentary about a man nicknamed (rightly, for his music at least) “The King of Pop.”

Has there been any greater modern example of an open secret than Michael Jackson’s propensity to, at the very least, spend an unsettling amount of time with children? The debate has raged on and on for years: was this a man who simply didn’t have a normal childhood and wanted to live vicariously through his young “friends,” or was this a mentally and sexually disturbed pedophile who lured innocent tykes to a literal Neverland where he could do with them as he pleased?

Certainly, with the release of said documentary, the pendulum appears to swing more towards the latter. There have now been myriad credible accusations about Jackson, and a newly resurfaced tape of his sister LaToya (from all the way back in 1993) shows her denouncing “his crimes against small, innocent children” (though she later recanted the statements).

While Jackson was alive, how many of us gave serious thought to whether he was acting inappropriately? Yes, he settled a case out of court in the 90s and was brought up on charges once (as was our friend Jeffrey Epstein, whom I’ll address shortly), but he skated. We, the public, continued to listen to his music and disregard his behavior. Certainly no one dared to raise this open secret to the level of moral outrage for many years… but, in so doing, what did we enable?

In not examining these open secrets in the court of public opinion and demanding full investigations, what else have we allowed to happen? As #metoo has shown us, we’ve permitted workplace sexual harassment and assault for generations. We’ve enabled human trafficking by reducing it to a joke. We’ve allowed powerful people – usually men – to live lives free from consequence, and even bestowed upon them a certain fear-based gravitas; no one dared cross Harvey Weinstein or Les Moonves, lest their careers be torpedoed, despite the fact that (at least in the case of the former) his culture of intimidation and abuse was a Hollywood-sized open secret.

You’ve probably noticed that all of the open secrets mentioned so far concern sex. I believe this is because sex itself has always been something of an open secret in America. We have spent decades trying to shake our puritan past, and many are still uncomfortable with a frank, open, and honest discussion of sexual health and preferences. Abstinence-only education is “stressed” in 27 states. The debate about abortion, together with the political might of the Evangelical right, can (and do) obscure any nuanced debate about contraception or premarital relations. It’s something we’re slowly confronting, but it will take time. And calling people to the carpet for using sex to gain power or hurt others is – however uncomfortable – part of that confrontation.

If it isn’t already, allow me to make plain the fundamental purpose of this column: Think about your open secrets- our open secrets. Think, as I have tried to do after the above instances have exploded into national discussions, about those things that we all know to be true but that nobody ever talks about. I’m not advocating for “witch hunts” – there’s been quite enough talk of those lately – but of mere explorations of the obvious. I can think of several as-yet unexamined cases off the top of my head. The first, to shift from the from the titillating to the mundane, is the problem of tax havens. Does anybody still talk about the Panama Papers or the Paradise Papers? Or about how a journalist who helped to uncover them was mysteriously killed by a car bomb in Malta? I actually heard someone make the argument recently that if the United States raises tax rates on the wealthy, our modern-day robber barons will simply hide more money offshore. That’s the same fundamental (and asinine) assertion as, “We can’t have tighter gun restrictions, because criminals will still find a way to get them.” The solution, to people who advance these viewpoints, is inaction. They are content living, as we have for years, with our open secrets. They imagine that the above instances (the easy reducibility of gun violence being its own open secret) do not affect them. But what if their family members were killed with legal guns? Or if they were deprived of necessary social services because of haven-driven deficits? Would they be so quick to brush these important issues under the rug, pretending they don’t know what they know that they know?

For most people, the rate at which our planet is warming is the biggest, smelliest, most egregious open secret… on the planet. Thankfully, the debate over whether or not climate change is occurring (and man-made) seems to be evaporating, as more of those who’ve stuck their heads in the hot, hot sand pass away. But the question of how best to take action remains. For all her foibles, it was not until Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez used her considerable platform to advance a Green New Deal that Americans actually started considering the sweeping, necessary policy changes that might help alleviate some of the inevitable suffering we are poised to face in the coming years. Even those who distrust the Green New Deal’s ambitious aims of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 know that they need to support something. We all need to support something… or else we’ll keep our biggest elephant in the room well-fed, kicking the can down the road until some major Kraft-like climate event occurs… and by then it might be too late.

Doping in cycling, Hollywood accounting,  soda, the Washington Redskins (and Cleveland Indians), college admissions, Scientology, Donald Trump’s mental health… these and many other subjects qualify for official Open Secret status. What do they all have in common? They have had moments of exposure, here and there, but remain – in some cases, dangerously – unresolved.

What will it take for us as a nation (and a world) to shed enough sunlight on these matters to melt them away? Two things: courage and awareness. One follows the other- it takes courage to be aware enough to confront these behaviors and the circumstances that allow them to thrive, and yet another level to hold those in power accountable. First, however, we must confront our own complicity. In this increasingly Orwellian world, we would do well to remember the author’s iconic words from 1984: “If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”

ADDENDUM: Concerning Epstein

As a millennial, I had always heard the name Jeffrey Epstein. Often, it was used as either a political bludgeon or evidence of the Illuminati. When I wrote this column back in March, I had little hope that Epstein would finally be brought up on charges relating to his systematic predatory behavior against scores of young women, and that those charges would (possibly) open the door for many more against those who may have aided, abetted, and willingly joined in his behavior. Epstein’s case fits the mold perfectly: A wealthy man who thinks he’s above the law, surely because he has been. Much has been made about the sweetheart deal former Trump cabinet member Alex Acosta gave Epstein in 2008, and with good reason. Epstein’s predilections were long known, as the following excerpt makes plain, and yet… and yet. No one, especially those in a position to expose his behavior, dared do so. It is in these circumstances where, yet again, the public is duty bound to step in. I know we have a lot to worry about – climate change, income inequality, superbugs – but none of that is going away. Cases like Kraft’s, Jackson’s, and Epstein’s are the easy ones. In a world of increasing abstraction, where things seem increasingly complicated, we must see the simple for what it is, and act accordingly.

From New York Magazine’s How a Predator Operated in Plain Sight:

How could this have gone on and on? Why so much silence for so many years? Why did no one tip off the authorities or issue any but what must have been the most whispery warnings to close personal friends about Epstein’s pyramid-scheme approach to abusing an apparently infinite number of teenage girls? That Bill Clinton and Trump might play dumb is understandable, if reprehensible. But Larry Summers? Alan Dershowitz? Leslie Wexner, Bill Barr, Ken Starr (!); journalists Katie Couric and George Stephanopoulos; Eva Andersson-Dubin, who founded Mount Sinai’s breast-cancer center? Not to mention their spouses and partners and the people who manage their calendars and the Harvard finance men and women accepting his millions? The whistle-blowers in the Epstein case have not been the high and mighty who can afford to hire lawyers and publicists but the victims themselves, and their families, evoking nothing more than the Catholic Church sex-abuse cases, in which grandmas and aunts spent decades writing letters and knocking fruitlessly on bishops’ doors. “What is so amazing to me is how his entire social circle knew about this and just blithely overlooked it,” says Vicki Ward, the reporter whose 2003 discovery of Epstein’s abuses she alleges were scrubbed by Vanity Fair’s then editor, Graydon Carter. Everyone who knew Epstein mentioned “the girls,” Ward told the New York Times, “but as an aside.”

[brettaresco]

The Many and the One

Adolf Hitler

Charles Manson

Bernie Madoff

  Dylan Klebold

Adam Lanza

Dylann Roof

What’s the difference between these two lists?

Let’s start with the similarities.  First, inescapably, both contain only white men.  Second, all of those white men have done horrible, most would say evil, things. The degrees of evil vary, and it must be said that one of the above never directly physically harmed anyone. Third, all of the names are instantly recognizable to most Americans.

Now for the differences. Well, the one major difference. Though the scope may differ, those on the first list are each associated with a specific type of cruelty.  Those on the second list are all notorious for the same thing.

What am I getting at?

Call me crazy, but I think the second list should have only one name.

Think about it:

 Adolf Hitler: Genocide (and general evil)

Charles Manson: Murderous cults

Bernie Madoff: Massive financial fraud

When discussing these men’s crimes, their names carry a singular weight.  They have come to embody the atrocities they committed, to the point where the mere mention of their names inspires anger in the present and caution for the future.  We have an important, understandable shorthand for talking about what each man symbolizes. For each, we have one major point of reference- one that guides our actions away from their horrific acts.

When we talk about gun violence in America, we have many.

It doesn’t have to be this way.  Whenever a tragedy like the recent shooting in Las Vegas happens in America (seemingly every other month or so), some bring up Australia.  It’s become cliché.  Why?  Well, because, unlike here in America, Australia’s list has one name: Martin Bryant.  His semiautomatic rifle attack in 1996 was the deadliest mass shooting in Australian history.  After a swift and decisive government response, Australia’s number of gun deaths per 100,000 people began steadily dropping- as of 2015 it stands at .93, down from 2.84 in 1996.

Now, never having been to Australia, I have no idea how people talk about Martin Bryant (though I know a little of how they talk about US mass shootings).  I’m not sure if Bryant is indeed, so to speak, the Hitler of their gun violence. But considering the impact of his heinous crime and the lasting effect of Australia’s response to it (which involved the creation of an arms registry, stricter licensing, and a massive gun buyback program), I have a hard time believing he’s not.  And even if he isn’t, wouldn’t we in America love to have only one major reference point for senseless death at the hands of guns? One that would allow all others to slowly fade into the fog of history?  As this article points out re: Bryant’s spree, “There had been previous mass shootings in Australia, but none in recent times of this magnitude.”  To put things in context, Bryant’s attack (known as the Port Aurthur massacre) killed 35 and wounded 23.  The attack that just occurred in Las Vegas killed 50 people and wounded over 500.

And yet… does anybody think Stephen Paddock will become “the one”?

Let’s face it: America has a gun problem.  At this point, anybody who doesn’t think so is willfully ignorant.  Now, are there legitimate arguments to be made for how best to deal with that problem?  Absolutely. But I think we’ve seen, time and time again, that doing nothing is not the answer.  Which is exactly what I would say to anybody who claims that I, like millions of others searching for anything that we as a populace can do to make sure something like this doesn’t happen yet again, am “politicizing the issue.”  Unfortunately, it’s political.  And it has been for some time.  We can simultaneously grieve for those brutally murdered and make sure more don’t suffer the same fate.  In fact, it’s what we are obliged to do.

I wouldn’t claim to know why exactly it’s been so hard for Americans to do anything about guns despite our long (and relatively recent) history of mass shootings.  But keeping with the numbers theme of this column, I’m willing to venture a guess:

America has a context problem.

There are certain things that Americans, and all humans, find easy to understand.  We like connections; if we can assign blame or causality (or even correlation) to events, we’re much more comfortable both with a particular issue and how to deal with it.  It’s why the Iraq war made so much sense to so many.  Who took down the Twin Towers?  Terrorists.  Where were the terrorists from?  The Middle East.  Was Saddam Hussein a bad guy?  Sure. And boom: one of the longest and least necessary wars in American history.

With gun violence, as we’ve seen time and time again, even correlation is hard to find.  Well, aside from the obvious.  That’s because, though we’ve had gun attacks in the name of, for instance, radical Islamic terrorism (San Bernadino, Fort Hood), most of the mass shootings in this country have been unconnected (the famous “lone wolf” phenomenon).  And often, there are no signs that the gunman was a danger beforehand.

Such is the case with this most recent attack.  

In the aftermath of the shooting, Las Vegas Police Sherriff Joseph Lombardo was quoted as saying “We had no knowledge of this individual.  I don't know how it could have been prevented.”  Was Paddock some sort of religious or political zealot?  "We have no idea what his belief system was," Lombardo said.  When interviewed yesterday, the shooter’s own brother echoed both sentiments.  “The fact that he had those kind of weapons is just – where the hell did he get automatic weapons?” Eric Paddock said. “He has no military background or anything like that. He’s just a guy who lived in a house in Mesquite, drove down and gambled in Las Vegas.”

Just a guy.  Who lived in a house in Mesquite.  And legally owned 42 guns.

And therein lies the problem.  Anytime something as powerful as the automatic (or semiautomatic functioning as an automatic) weapon Paddock reportedly used in his senseless attack is available to any human being, there is an element of chance.  We are surrounded by randomness in our society- randomness that explains how difficult it is to prevent even detectable, related terrorist attacks.  We are also more connected than ever, with more stimuli than ever.  Any single one of those stimuli may at any point cause someone to fly off the handle.  That loss of control is nothing new.  But what’s the variable that makes it deadly?  Guns.  Lots and lots of powerful guns.

The other part of America’s context problem more directly involves numbers.  I'm constantly amazed at our inability (or unwillingness) to understand scope with regards to the "debate" about gun violence (I actually think a lot of us are unable to understand scope with regard to any disaster, natural or manmade, because many of us have not had to deal with death on a regular basis.  There are people living in horrible circumstances in America, but few like the Rohingya).  Regardless, when we talk about shootings (especially those of us who defend our current gun laws), we too often invoke the famous axiom of someone who belongs on this column’s first list, Josef Stalin: "One death is a tragedy.  One million is a statistic."  In an America with stricter gun laws (and tighter monitoring of the number and type of guns in circulation), an attack such as last night's still could've happened.  But I ask you, in all seriousness: How many people would have died?  10?  20?  Surely fewer than 58.  And none if the attack had been prevented altogether, which at the very least would have been easier if there were fewer guns in circulation (I challenge anyone to argue that point).

We see lone wolf and terrorist attacks all the time- two women were killed in France just days ago.  But that was carried out with a knife.  And even in attacks in countries with strict gun laws in which guns were procured illegally, the casualties are fewer.  We have to ask ourselves: why is that?  Is it possibly - possibly - because there aren't 23 guns involved?  And, maybe - just maybe - they're less likely to be automatic or semiautomatic?  And then, after asking ourselves these questions, we must return to Stalin’s heartless astuteness- it would take 29 of the recent Paris attacks to approximate the Vegas attack (minus the hundreds of injuries).  And yet... we treat each as one incident.  Those who believe in unfettered (or less stringent) gun laws (usually on the right) will point (and have pointed) to the Paris attack and similar ones prior as a way to deflect from the one in Vegas.  And this false equivalency completely ruins our ability to put things in context.

I for one believe that, while favorite bogeymen ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism represent a threat to our world (East and West, Christian and Muslim (and Jewish, and Buddhist, and nonreligious...)), the far greater threat is fear.  Though we cannot know this shooter's motive (and he was likely mentally ill- though I would argue anyone who shoots someone out of anything but self-defense is mentally ill), I'd like to see one person argue that the general populace is happier or less fearful than it was five years (or even five weeks) ago.  And though fear itself may not be a fatal problem, and can easily be conquered, it can cause people to do strange things.  Strange, random, sometimes drastic things.  As we've seen throughout human history, these things will happen- it's just a matter of where and when.  But also, most crucially, it is a matter of how.

In our lifetimes, we've seen mass murderers use planes and we've seen them use cars.  Yet we as a society have determined that whatever threat is posed by the improper use of these technologies is far outweighed by their benefits.  And even then, the registration and operation of both are tightly controlled.  Like everything else in life, preventing death on any scale is an issue of pros and cons.  So what, exactly, is the calculus on assault rifles?  On semiautomatic weapons?  Even on handguns?  Do we ever actually bother to make the list, or do we just keep kicking the can down the road?

To me, all of this seems obvious.  And I'm far from the only person saying it.  So why then is nothing getting done?  Still?  The incident in Las Vegas is now the deadliest mass shooting in American history. Whether or not we treat it as such, this is our Port Aurthur massacre.  To be fair, as the above article says, dealing with gun control in America is a lot more difficult than in Australia.  But it’s not impossible.  What does it say about us that we can’t at least ban assault weapons (like we once did)?  While we’re at it, why not ban any and all automatic and semiautomatic weapons (and attachments like “attachable cranks” that allow other weapons to function as such)?  Prostitution is illegal (in almost all states).  Marijuana is illegal (in almost all states).  And yet semiautomatic (and some automatic) weapons are widely legal and available?  What is this country?

Seriously, what has become of America?  We're the country of entrepreneurship, of drive.  We are a nation of immigrants founded on taking risks.  And yet somehow, not just with gun control but with healthcare, tax reform, etc., we've become hesitant to take risks.  Why?  Because of “congressional gridlock”?  Try something.  It’s not like we don’t have a margin for error.  We’re the richest country in the world with the strongest military. What’s the worst that can happen? We might save one million lives; we might only save one.  But guess what?  That one life may be yours.  Talk about a context problem- how, even after the horrible, unprovoked attack on a senator earlier this year, can every single member of Congress not wake up every day thinking “that could have been me”?  And once we’ve done something, anything, even the smallest thing to decrease the number of guns (and thus the chance of random, unforeseen shootings) in this country, what will we have we lost in return?  I’ll wait.

There is, of course, another problem of a similar nature facing our country.  It too involves a long list of names but, more respectfully, of the victims.  Trayvon Martin.  Alton Sterling.  Philando Castile.  Michael Brown.  Sandra Bland. There are countless more on that list that have necessarily and appropriately been forced into our consciousness.  That list should also contain only one name.  As with guns, we need to take action so that there are no more unnecessary deaths at the hands of law enforcement.  But, whether we like it or not, those deaths are less directly attributable to a widespread problem. That’s not to say there aren’t issues that we can tackle, though- as this is a column about guns, I’ll save my righteous indignation on that point for another day, and let John Oliver handle it in the meantime.

The bottom line is, as Americans, we need to start having the hard conversations.  We need to start holding our representatives’ feet to the fire.  More than that, we need to start holding our fellow citizens accountable.  Let’s talk.  We bemoan intolerance on both sides but it seems too often that the conversation ends there.  Engage. That means not backing down and thinking, as I often have, "Well, this conversation isn't gonna go anywhere, so it's best to drop it."  I’m as guilty as anyone- there are people in my life who believe in that mass shootings can be prevented by one responsible citizen with a gun.  Often, I don’t engage with them about the issue.  I think it’s a lost cause.  But when people are dying, there’s no such thing as a lost cause.

Let me repeat: People are dying.  More people were killed two nights ago than in any other shooting in American history.  Not by some shadow actor, not by some government conspiracy, but by some average Joe with guns. 

Just like Dylan Klebold.

Or Adam Lanza,

Dylann Roof,

Omar Mateen,

Seung-hui Cho,

or James Holmes.

There are many names on that list.  And by the time this problem is solved - or, at the very least, mitigated -  there may be many more. 

Here’s hoping that someday, there will only be one.

PS- In fairness to one of the worst people in history, I found out in writing this that Stalin may not have actually said his iconic quote about death.  Regardless, the sentiment became famous for a reason.

PPS- I alternated between saying the shooter had 42 and 23 guns- he reportedly owned 42, but had 23 in his hotel room at the time of the shooting.  And he bought some of them from a Mesquite, NV shop called “Guns and Guitars.”  You can’t make this stuff up.

PPPS- Speaking of Guns and Guitars, there’s a much longer column to be written on the real cause of inaction on guns: $$$.  As of 2015, the US firearms industry was worth $49.3 billion.  And considering the outsize influence of money in our political system, any idiot can see that it’s gonna take some real work to effect lasting change…

And the Trump White House (surprise, surprise) doesn’t seem eager to get the ball rolling, given this CNN report from the first post-shooting press briefing: "But Sanders eschewed questions about support for stricter gun laws, saying the White House has been focused on ‘bringing our country together,’ not ‘the policy part.’"

PPPPS- I’ve thrown around the terms “automatic,” “semiautomatic,” “assault weapons,” etc. and I’m sure I’ve butchered some of the finer points.  But… that’s not the point.  As I said before, why do we need even semiautomatic weapons in circulation? And I’m not the only one who doesn’t see much of a difference.  It appears that Paddock used at least one device that made his semiautomatic weapons function as automatic weapons.  Even if he didn’t have a, quote, “machine gun,” he essentially had a machine gun.  Which I, like the shooter’s brother, think is insane.  "Do I believe that he should have been able to get a machine gun?" Eric asked NBC News. "Let me loose on whoever sold him the machine gun. He should not have a machine gun."

Whatever the hell guns Paddock used, he killed 58 and wounded over 500 people.  Excuse me, for not giving a shit about classifications.

[brettaresco]

BLROTD for Thursday, 4/13/17

Ahhhhhhh... the penultimate pre-hiatus entry of BLROTD.

As with yesterday’s piece, today I bend the rules of the longread to bring you a longform... podcast.

Clocking in at just about three hours, the episode is an installment of standup comedian Ari Shaffir’s podcast “Skeptic Tank” from last September.  Titled “All Who Wander Are Not Lost,” after the famous J.R.R. Tolkien saying, Shaffir interviews Henry Rollins, former lead singer of punk band Black Flag and current world traveler/actor/storyteller.  The conversation was brought to my attention by my friend Donaldo, the same person who alerted me to the NPR podcast about the Mercers, which I talk a little about here and here.

I had never heard Shaffir’s podcast before, but apparently it’s pretty popular.  Though I found his intro to be a little overlong (especially the weeeeeiiiiiiiird aside about King Kong), his time with Rollins was fascinating.  I had heard Rollins’ name before, but didn’t really know anything about him- finding out that he devoted his life to traveling, meeting people, taking photographs and writing (especially after his seemingly quite different former life as part of Black Flag) was inspiring and heartening.

Why heartening?  Well, as I prepare to embark on a trip during which I will visit 10 different countries, having just visited the whole eastern (and some of the midwestern) United States, I’ve finally begun to explore my wanderlust.  It’s always been there, I just haven’t known how to indulge it.  Lately, I’ve been lucky enough to have the time and money (at least for a little while longer) to get out and see the world, something that transportation has made easier than ever but that precious few people actually do.

I recommend listening to the entire interview- if you’re a podcast person like me, it’ll fly by.  There’s plenty in it about life, aging, people, and the importance of listening to oneself, but one line in particular really stuck with me.  At one point, as he recounts a particularly exciting anecdote, Rollins says something to the effect of “Man... the provenance of it all.”

Although I’m not entirely sure what he meant by this, I took it as Rollins touching on how interconnected we all are.  He seems, throughout the interview, to be in awe of the places he’s been and the things he’s done.  It’s a beautiful sentiment, and one that traveling has a way of engendering- as he says in another moment, it’s hard to get someone to fight in a war when they’ve spent time with the people they would be fighting.

(Note: in the former section, Rollins may have actually said “providence,” in which case I like the idea just as much, because there is so much luck involved with us even being born into the world, let alone into our unique and special lives.  I would re-listen but I have no idea where it was and... well, the show is three hours.  Either way- I like it.  I like it so much.)

So kick back, relax, and prepare for/avoid your family on Easter by listening to a man, as he would say, groove on our world for a little bit.

Enjoy: http://arithegreat.com/ari-shaffirs-skeptic-tank-277-not-all-those-who-wander-are-lost-with-henry-rollins/

[brettaresco]

BLROTD for Wednesday, 4/12/17

Here at Brett’s Long Read of the Day, especially as it comes to a close for a while (more on that here), we’re all about expanding our horizons.  In a previous edition, in lieu of a written piece, I featured a short webseries (produced by my friend’s company, Redfitz) called “Conflict.”  It is a stirring, emotional look at photographers of conflict - from domestic violence to civil war - and the dangers they face to make abstract violence real.

Today (or, rather, a few days ago, as I’m catching up this week in advance of my trip), a similar example of immediate visual storytelling caught my eye.  This time, it comes from a champion of the written word- the old Gray Lady herself, The New York Times.  Though print and video are distinctly different mediums (and many would argue that the ubiquity and ascendancy of the latter has severely damaged the former), when the two combine it is a sight to be seen (or, dare I say... read).  As someone who loves journalism (duh), a great documentary can give me the same satisfaction as a great longread, or even a great full-length book.  Such was the case with “Conflict,” and such is the case with today’s short Times documentary, entitled The Forger.

It’s based on the book Adolfo Kaminsky: A Forger’s Life by Kaminsky’s daughter, Sarah Kaminsky.  In a little under 20 minutes, the film gives a simple, beautiful overview of the elder Kaminsky’s incredible life as a forger of identity cards for fellow Jews during the Holocaust.  Complete with elegant visuals of swirling inks and atmospheric animation, along with first-person interviews with both Adolfo and Sarah, it becomes very moving very quickly.

At one point while watching, as Adolfo spoke of how he once made 300 fake identity cards in three days (without really sleeping, at a rate of about one every two minutes), I had the thought that he was perhaps the greatest person who ever lived.  And I’m not sure that’s far from the truth.  But, due both to individuals’ tendency towards navel gazing and the unfathomable scope of world events, it’s easy to forget that there have been millions like him throughout human history.  People who will never live on in a book, or a documentary, or even a memory beyond that of someone they helped.  Yet their deeds are selfless and important beyond measure.

To paraphrase Sarah Kaminsky from the end of the piece, The Forger is a tale of how the most normal of people can have the most extraordinary impact on humanity.  And in these days of bombs and madmen, we need those people - and their stories - more than ever.  

Enjoy: https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000004683722/the-forger.html

[brettaresco]

BLROTD for Tuesday, 4/11/17

In honor of yesterday’s horrendous video of the Chicago airport police partnering with United Airlines in an unprecedented show of force towards one of the airline’s customers, today’s shortishread concerns the unhealthy consolidation that’s been driving the decline in American airline companies’ quality of service, even as their fares climb ever upwards.

Eric Levitz from New York Magazine’s “Daily Intelligencer” writes not only of this phenomenon’s unhealthy effect on individual consumers, but of the what of major carriers’ actions mean for mid-sized American cities.  I have at times found myself in various US cities or towns with seemingly superfluous airports and wondered about why they are there.  Some appear totally nonfunctional; others would appear to cater to private flyers only.  But I never really think about how some of these airports (did you know St. Louis has two right near downtown?) were once widely used, and have since fallen into disuse or disrepair.  In his short article, Levitz gives a nice overview of the post-deregulation market forces and corporate decisions that led to a few large, greedy companies dominating our skies.  He also notes that, though deregulation was assumed to hurt mid-sized markets at least a little, it did not even result in the lower prices that it almost solely existed to promote.

And speaking of said prices, what I found to be the most infuriating aspect of all this is something Levitz only touches on- despite massive public subsidies and an industry with startup costs that make new players scarce, airlines still manage to lose money.  They seem to be doing better lately, but in the decade before this they lost tens of billions.  How does this happen?  Well... maybe such a natural monopoly should be fairly regulated after all.  At one point, an optimistic Levitz seems to hint at that fact:

"Still, it seems doubtful that our government will let a giant, profit-starved, private monopoly torture its customers and suffocate regional economies in perpetuity."

No offense to Levitz, but I respectfully disagree.  Though he goes on to note that, thanks to the current administration, airlines will likely continue to have their way for 4-8 years, I would venture a guess that nothing will change after Trump and his ilk are long gone.  Why?  Simple: Airlines have money.  Money begets lobbyists.  Lobbyists beget laws.  Laws help airlines.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

Just another chapter in the great incidence of regulatory capture that is our beloved US government.

Enjoy: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/04/airlines-are-starving-giants-that-are-gnawing-at-our-economy.html

[brettaresco]

BLROTD for Monday, 4/10/17

Back on the horse, guys... after my Gleason-related emotional delay on Friday night, which resulted in a Friday longread posted on Monday, I’ve become somewhat derelict in my duties.  But that ends now- today you’ll be getting two, maybe three of these babies to chew on during your after-work relaxation...

The first comes to us courtesy of Brendan O’Connor over at Fusion.  There’s been a lot of talk lately, mostly from those on the right, of convening a new Constitutional Convention, something that hasn’t been done since the original back in 1787.  The possibility for such an action is provided for in the Constitution itself, as part of Article V, which has famously been used to amend the Constitution 27 times so far.  It turns out the founders were so very preoccupied with the tyranny of the state that they allowed, in the event of a runaway federal government, for state legislatures to take matters into their own hands and pass Constitutional amendments they deemed necessary.  Seems fine - even noble - right?  Well...

The main people pushing for such a convention in order to break our invisible chains of bureaucracy are A) billionaires like the Kochs and Mercers (the latter of whom I talked about here) and B) people like Michael Farris, “a religious conservative and founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) who now serves as the CEO and general counsel of Alliance Defending Freedom, one of the largest and most influential entities on the Christian right.”  These are hardly downtrodden, middle-class Americans.  For the most part, they are fabulously wealthy and/or influential business and spiritual leaders who are somehow still uncomfortable with how the federal government works despite their disproportionate ability to influence each and every election through the use of dark money.  And there’s an ironic word for the power they are trying to bring to bear on our political process (as screwed up as it may currently be): tyranny.

In his piece, O’Connor does a nice job of tying up the loose ends of donations, legislation, and lobbying to show who is pushing hardest for this good-in-theory, terrible-in-practice Constitutional Convention.  And lest you think such massive, country-altering action is impossible, take heed of the words of one of the state legislators mentioned in the piece.

“‘You really don’t need people to do this,’ an Article V proponent told Wisconsin state representative Chris Taylor, a Democrat who attended an ALEC summit in 2013 and wrote about the experience. ‘You just need control over the legislature and you need money, and we have both.’”

As for what they may want, O’Connor notes the aims of one serious proponent, Texas Governor Greg Abbott:

“Abbott proposes, for example, prohibiting Congress from regulating activity that occurs wholly within a single state, restricting the ability of administrative agencies to write federal regulations, and allowing a two-thirds majority of state legislatures to overturn a federal law or regulation.”

Chilling.

The solution?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Get the money out of politics.

Enjoy: http://fusion.net/right-wing-billionaires-are-buying-themselves-a-new-con-1793960357

[brettaresco]

BLROTD for Friday, 4/7/17

Hey Guys,

Yes... this is late.  BUT... I promise I have a VERY GOOD EXCUSE as to why...

I had this whole writeup queued up and ready to go midday Friday.  I decided to wait to post it so I could contemplate it for a little longer and maybe make a couple changes.  Then I made a huge mistake... except it wasn’t a huge mistake, it was a great decision, and it relates to a prior longread on this here site...

Yup, I finally watched Gleason.

Oh man, guys... ohhhhhh maaannnnn.  It was everything I expected and more.  I cried start to finish, and I somehow came out of it with even more respect for both Steve and his wife Michel.  It’s a heartbreaking, real, transcendent, and unnerving look at humanity in its rawest form.  I couldn’t possibly recommend it more highly, if you’re in the market to remember what it feels like to live.

OK, now... ONTO THE LONGREAD:

Several weeks ago, I finally watched Ava DuVernay's documentary Thirteenth on Netflix.  It's a stunning look at the legacy of slavery and racism in America, specifically with regard to how both impact America's absurd prison population.  It touches on a lot of things we tend not to think about- electoral disenfranchisement of felons, joint lawmaking between representatives and corporations, and forced, cheap-or-free labor.

The latter is the subject of today's longread.  About a month ago, Kristine Phillips wrote in the Washington Post about a major lawsuit brought by a number of current and former ICE detainees, who claim they were essentially forced into slavery during their detainment at private prison facilities.  Inmates - despite very possibly having done nothing wrong - were reportedly forced to perform maintenance or complete other tasks for $1 a day, and were threatened with solitary confinement if they didn't comply.

I could write a book about all the things wrong with the very idea of private prisons, but the Trump administration has seemed to embrace them with open arms.  Before leaving office, Barack Obama tried to put into place measures that would dramatically reduce and/or eliminate government use of such facilities, only to have this administration succinctly dismiss them.  From Phillips:

"In a one-paragraph memo last week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded the previous directive to the Bureau of Prisons to either reduce or decline to renew private-prison contracts as they came due, The Washington Post’s Matt Zapotosky reported."

This, in a nutshell, is why it was so dangerous and irresponsible to elect Donald Trump president.  In the same way he decided on military action against the Syrian government without consulting Congress, one of his equally callous cronies was able to set back potential progress on prison reform with the stroke of a pen.  And he did it in the name of... well, money.  Phillips is sure to point out that the country's two largest for-profit incarceration companies gave $500,000 to celebrations surrounding Donald Trump's inaugural (three words, by the way, I still can't believe I'm typing).

Welcome to 2017, where people can be hauled off of planes and/or imprisoned against their will, due only to the fact that they may be guilty of some minor infraction.  Or, more likely, because they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.  And with Sessions’ newly announced “War on Drugs” redux, it appears he’ll be trying to employ more (white) people as hired thugs in order to round up (black and brown) people and incarcerate them in those numerous private prisons.  I don’t know about you, but I sure am tired of winning.

So, so tired.

Enjoy: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/03/05/thousands-of-ice-detainees-claim-they-were-forced-into-labor-a-violation-of-anti-slavery-laws/?postshare=2161488747693860&tid=ss_fb-bottom&utm_term=.63150a6dbcbd

[brettaresco]

BLROTD for Thursday, 4/6/17

It’s been a weird day.  Obviously there’s plenty to say about Donald Trump’s attack on Syria, and about recent revelations regarding the investigation into his campaign.  But all this must be put on hold.  Why?

Because Steve Bannon called Jared Kushner a “cuck.”

Repeat: Steve Bannon called Jared Kushner a cuck.

Thank you, Asawin Suebsaeng of The Daily Beast.  Thank you.

ENJOY: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/06/steve-bannon-calls-jared-kushner-a-cuck-and-globalist-behind-his-back.html

[brettaresco]

BLROTD for Wednesday, 4/5/17

Today’s installment of BLROTD is another throwback- and, like at least one other throwback on this blog, it concerns the Green Bay Packers.

I’ve been a rabid Packers fan since I was about 6.  In the intervening years, I’ve visited Lambeau Field, become an owner of the team, and watched Aaron Rodgers get drafted... in person.  I’ve also managed to read a lot - and I mean a lot - about the team.

One of the writers I’ve read most is a man named Bob McGinn.  As with all beat writers, he’s known much more for his observations than his persona- observations he’s made over a 40+ year career.  He writes for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, which together with the Green Bay Press-Gazette forms the twin pillars of Packers journalism (at least as far as I’m concerned).  I remember one summer in particular, during college, I read about all there was to read about the Packers’ offseason.  I had my first (and, to this day, only) office job, and between projects I would turn on Internet radio (those were the days) and go back and forth between the two papers’ websites.  This was before either had a paywall, so I could get my fill of Packers coverage for free.  And get my fill I did...

Today, in a well-deserved piece by Greg Bishop of Sports Illustrated, the lens is turned back on McGinn, in appreciation of his long and storied career.  It’s a career that has been the model of consistency.  And though McGinn has not courted praise, he deserves it nonetheless.  To wit:

"That’s the thing about McGinn. Stars retire. Coaches get fired. Regimes change. But his stories are always in the paper, as consistent as the 'G' on the Packers’ helmets."

That about sums it up.  Bob McGinn has spent his life obsessing over every detail of a revolving door profession- even casual fans have surely heard that the NFL stands for “Not For Long.”  Yet he has written enough to, as Bishop describes, fill a good-sized office full of filing cabinets.  Indeed, McGinn seems to live how he writes- keeping track of every detail, organizing everything, and chronicling until he just can’t anymore.

Today’s is really just a beautiful piece.  It gives life to someone who is to many just a byline.  In some ways, it’s the perfect article for this feature, as it embodies the core intention of this space.

Incidentally, a song referenced in the piece - "Sweet Southern Comfort" by Buddy Jewell - was on a country mixtape an old girlfriend made me prior to that aforementioned summer.  And, because of said mixtape, it just so happens that the Internet radio I was listening to was all country... meaning I probably listened to that song while reading a Bob McGinn piece.

Enjoy: https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/01/20/green-bay-packers-bob-mcginn

PS- I just discovered in writing this that the Journal-Sentinel and the Press-Gazette have merged at least their sports coverage under the USA Today banner.  Huh.  And yet people like Bob McGinn persist, even in these strange journalistic times...

[brettaresco]

BLROTD for Tuesday, 4/4/17

I think I’ve established by now that Brett’s Long Read of the Day is just a name, and not entirely reflective of the fare featured on this... feature.  It was started as a showcase for longreads, and longreads there shall be, but sometimes I’ll choose to spotlight something a little shorter, especially if it concerns a subject about which I didn’t previously know or that I think people should examine.

Case in point: today’s piece from Lee Fang of The Intercept.

Before reading, I didn’t really give a shit about Donald Trump's pick for FDA chief, but I now realize I should.  Every American who counts him or herself a friend of other Americans should, as the opioid epidemic is real and it is frightening.  I remember talking to a woman on my recent trip (about which I'm writing a book- I'll be posting an update soon, but in the meantime check it out here) who said that at least twenty people from her high school class had OD’ed.  Those cases may have included other drugs (crystal meth, heroin (for which opioid pills are often a gateway)) but there's little debate that opioid abuse is rampant.  As this article points out, "The opioid crisis claims more than 16,000 lives from overdose deaths every year."  And, perhaps a more chilling statistic: "As we’ve reported, Americans consume about 81 percent of the global supply of oxycodone products (the active ingredient in OxyContin) and almost 100 percent of hydrocodone (the active ingredient used in brands such as Vicodin)." 

Donald Trump, along with many actual politicians, has talked a big game about opioid addiction as of late.  Lame-duck Governor Chris Christie, who was recently appointed by Trumpers to head a national opioid task force, has actually used some of his dwindling credibility to confront the issue in New Jersey, taking some significant steps in the process.  But, by and large, few leaders have taken measurable steps to stem the tide of these powerful drugs.  And even in Christie’s case, the focus seems to be more on the symptoms than on the underlying cause.  Indeed, as Trump rolls out Christie’s new task force, he intends to cut a major White House organization that has fought drug abuse for three decades.  And, as Fang points out in his article, Trump is also poised to make a man who’s taken thousands from major opioid manufacturers the head of the FDA.  That’s right: The subject of today’s longread is a man whose appointment Fang’s colleague Jon Schwarz called “one of the most shockingly cynical things I’ve ever seen in politics.”  Talk about missing the forest for the trees.

Sadly, in Trump’s case, we have no reason to believe he sees the trees, either.

Enjoy: https://theintercept.com/2017/04/04/scott-gottlieb-opioid/

[brettaresco]

BLROTD for Monday, 4/3/17

Sometimes here at BLROTD, we’re a little late to the party.  Such is the case with today's medium-longread, from all the way back in January.  It comes to us from Kieryn Darkwater, writing for Autostraddle, the self-proclaimed "progressively feminist online community for multiple generations of kickass lesbian, bisexual & otherwise inclined ladies (and their friends)."

In it, Kieryn talks about growing up as a homeschooled Evangelical Protestant, and how people who were raised like them seek to dominate American culture.  For any liberal coast-dweller, it's an eye-opening and bone-chilling read.  Though they've now left it, Kieryn grew up in a world where many are homeschooled, not only in various academic and religious subjects but in grassroots political activism.  Political campaigns and organizations are then able to use said homeschooled students (who have a lot more time on their hands) to spread their messages and advance their agendas.  It's a side of America many have never seen- yet, apparently, Mike Pence is its champion.

This shouldn't come as too much of a surprise.  Pence is ultra-religious and ultra-conservative- so much so that he seemingly believes in conversion therapy and refuses to spend time alone with any woman other than his wife.  Of course such a man, with his performative morals and exceptional narrow-mindedness, would be a champion of the Evangelical right.  And in their piece, Kieryn seems to imply that a good chunk of Christian America is praying for Pence to someday take the reigns from Donald Trump- a proposition that seems likelier by the day.

It has often been discussed that the term "religious freedom" in America implies freedom from other worldviews.  Darkwater seems to make that point in spades.  Which side will ultimately win this latest incarnation of the culture wars remains to be seen, but here's hoping its whichever one allows the losers to exist.

LINK: https://www.autostraddle.com/i-was-trained-for-the-culture-wars-in-home-school-awaiting-someone-like-mike-pence-as-a-messiah-367057/

PS- In researching this writeup, I learned that Mike Pence calls himself an “Evangelical Catholic”... a description for which he’s taken some flak.  As Darkwater mentions in the above piece, many of the Evangelical Protestants they grew up knowing view Catholics in the same way as Jews, which would not exactly jive with Pence being their champion.  But, from what I’ve read, the fact that Pence is a “born-again Evangelical” absolves him of the possible sins of his Catholic background, or the fact that he refers to himself in such a seemingly oxymoronic way.

PPS- If you’d like to read more about the relatively recent (and fascinating) reconciliation of Evangelicals and Catholics, go here.

[brettaresco]

BLROTD for Friday, 3/31/17

It’s not all sunshine and roses here at Brett’s Long Read of the Day... in fact, things can get downright cloudy.  Such is the case with today’s longread, which I stumbled upon while doing background research for yesterday’s entry.

The subject, again, is Northwestern Men’s Basketball.  However, instead of celebrating the team’s notable accomplishments this season, today’s article focuses on the messy story of a player heavily recruited to the university, but subsequently asked to leave the team.

The player in question is Johnnie Vassar, a former top-60 point guard with multiple Division-I offers who chose to play at Northwestern.  As Kevin Trahan of Vice Sports (himself a Northwestern grad) details in the longform piece below, Vassar seemingly fell out of favor with Northwestern’s coaching staff.  This led to urging on the part of coaches and administrators (head coach Chris Collins among them) to transfer, which would open up a scholarship for other players the school was (reportedly) actively recruiting.

There seems to be a point at which such behavior is par for the course in bigtime college athletics- something to which Trahan alludes when quoting a different Northwestern player in a similar situation.  But Vassar and his mother felt like Northwestern’s poor handling of the situation constituted a violation of their agreements with the school, so much so that they are suing both the school (over Vassar’s treatment) and the NCAA (for requiring transfers to sit out a year, as Vassar would have had to do had he transferred, given that he was not granted a waiver).

The whole thing might be a little inside baseball for those of you who don’t follow college basketball, but I for one found in fascinating.  In fact, I had a couple of other longreads lined up on this rainy day, but bumped this one to the front of the line.  It’s far from the first story of its kind, and surely won’t be the last.  And I should take pains to point out I don’t post this to stand behind Johnnie, or behind Northwestern, but rather to showcase a different aspect of a compelling story.  Though I sometimes inject my personal beliefs into Brett’s Long Read of the Day, this is not one of those occasions.  On this particular issue, it is not my place to pick sides.  I am merely here to present both accounts, provided they’re interesting and somewhat credible, and let you, the reader, decide.

You’ve got the whole weekend to think about it.

Enjoy: https://sports.vice.com/en_us/article/did-northwestern-basketball-run-off-johnnie-vassar

[brettaresco]

BLROTD for Thursday, 3/30/17

In the spirit of not getting too bogged down in (often dispiriting) political news, I present to you a longread about one of my favorite pastimes: college basketball.

For those of you who don’t follow the sport, this year marked the first time that Northwestern University’s men’s basketball team made the NCAA Tournament.  I often call NU my other alma mater (as I did a theater program there in high school and have many friends who attended), so naturally I follow their teams relatively closely.  Almost as closely as my real alma mater, which has a pretty decent basketball team, too...

Much like the Cubs in their same city, this year’s Wildcats had a massive chip on their collective shoulder.  In the same way nobody thought the Cubs could break their 108-year streak of futility, nobody thought Northwestern - playing in the difficult Big Ten with sky-high academic standards - could make it to the field of 68.  It wasn’t even an improbable eventuality, factoring in that sports can be cyclical and anything can happen.  People just didn’t think it was possible.  If you’re a football fan, imagine the Browns winning a Super Bowl.  Yeah, it was like that.

But lo and behold, thanks to the help of a Duke grad (head coach Chris Collins), Northwestern managed to navigate a difficult schedule, beat a few ranked teams, and put itself in position to be announced on Selection Sunday.  But before that day came, when the future was all but certain, Nicole Auerbach over at USA Today wrote a very nice feature.  In it she touched on those unmistakable Cubs parallels, caught up with a couple famous NU alums, and revealed that Collins was thinking beyond just making the tournament.

Sure enough, sooner than expected, his ambition paid off.  After qualifying for the first time ever, Northwestern also won for the first time ever, defeating Vanderbilt 68-66 in their first round 8 vs. 9 matchup.

It was an improbable ending to an improbable season... one that they’d like to start making routine.

Enjoy: http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/bigten/2017/02/23/northwestern-pressure-to-make-first-ncaa-tournament/98253176/

PS- Quick update on Tuesday’s longread about the mysterious Mercer family: I listened to that NPR podcast (available here) and BOY is it WEIRD.  It turns out the Mercers are into some crazy stuff... like bankrolling scientists to seek eternal life through urine and conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton killing people.  Oh, and Robert Mercer thinks nuclear war might be good for humanity.  Yeah... you should give it a listen.

[brettaresco]

BLROTD for Wednesday, 3/29/17

In less than three weeks, I will have the distinct privilege of traveling around Europe as an ambassador for Europe on Track, a unique program sponsored by European students organization AEGEE.  It promises to be an incredible opportunity to talk with people in a variety of different countries about the societal tumult recently sweeping the Western World.

As I gear up for this exciting European adventure, I’ve been keeping a close eye on the political goings-on over there (as much as one can here in America).  Many Americans may not know that last Saturday marked the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, which would eventually lead to the European Union we know today.  This is a cause for both celebration and reflection as, despite the EU’s role in creating sustained peace in Europe, myriad factors seem to be conspiring against the union’s long-term health.

In today’s longread (though it’s actually more of a shortread), the staff of The Economist (which writes collectively, something I somehow never noticed and is explained here) offers a no-holds-barred look at what it believes the EU must do to ensure its very survival.  The key, the writers say, is flexibility: If countries can participate in different tiers of membership, with certain commitments corresponding to each tier, there will be less cause for resentment and more opportunities for autonomy.

It’s an interesting idea, and one that seems likely to occur at some point.  When exactly remains up for debate- but current events would dictate sooner rather than later.

Enjoy: http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21719462-if-it-survive-european-union-must-become-lot-more-flexible-can-europe-be-saved

[brettaresco]

BLROTD for Tuesday, 3/28/17

Fresh off yesterday’s true longread about healthcare, we have another loooooong piece (DON’T STOP READING), this time about the shadow family behind Trump and Brexit: the Mercers.  A friend of mine recently recommended that I listen to an episode of the NPR show Fresh Air concerning the Mercers (available via podcast here), and I’m excited to do so.  In the meantime, today’s writeup from Carole Cadwalladr of English paper The Guardian does a pretty terrifying job detailing Mercer’s initiatives to this point, along with his possible plans for the future.

If you’ve seen the documentary “Tickled,” which I watched for the first time last night, you’ll find Robert Mercer’s story familiar.  Both are examples of (SPOILER ALERT) a wealthy man’s use of vast sums of money both to harass and to advance his twisted worldview.  In the case of “Tickled,” the man is an eccentric recluse.  In that of Robert Mercer, he’s a power-hungry ultra-conservative.

Cadwalladr’s tale is beyond disturbing.  In it she talks of bots, propaganda, and brainwashing.  And, being English, she focuses not only on our presidential election, but on Britain’s equally consequential “leave” vote.

The two events are often spoken of in the same breath, but Cadwalladr shows how they’re linked by more than mere proximity and geopolitical effect.  According to the piece, Mercer and his digital pursuits (including a data company called Cambridge Analytica) contributed heavily to both outcomes, something that the head of Leave.EU (an organization advocating Brexit) openly admits.  “Behind Trump’s campaign and Cambridge Analytica, he said, were ‘the same people.  It’s the same family.’”

As for how the Mercers and their robot hordes could turn the tide of not one but two major votes, allow Dr. Jonathan Rust from Cambridge University’s Psychometric Center (no relation to Cambridge Analytica) to explain:

“‘It’s no exaggeration to say that minds can be changed. Behaviour can be predicted and controlled. I find it incredibly scary. I really do. Because nobody has really followed through on the possible consequences of all this. People don’t know it’s happening to them. Their attitudes are being changed behind their backs.’”

Then, during an exchange between Cadwalladr and Jonathan Bollen, associate professor at the Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing, from later in the piece:

“Could you reverse engineer the national, or even the global, mood? Model it, and then change it?

‘It does seem possible. And it does worry me. There are quite a few pieces of research that show if you repeat something often enough, people start involuntarily to believe it. And that could be leveraged, or weaponised for propaganda. We know there are thousands of automated bots out there that are trying to do just that.’

And lest you think these bots have diffuse masters, or are entirely coincidental in their very existence, take a gander at this gem (from an exchange between Cadwalladr and Jonathan Albright, Elon University professor of communications):

“Is there a central intelligence to that, I ask Albright? ‘There has to be. There has to be some type of coordination. You can see from looking at the map, from the architecture of the system, that this is not accidental. It’s clearly being led by money and politics.’”

Ah yes, money and politics.  Two things that should never go together.  Ever.

Sadly, in the age of Trump and Brexit, it looks like money and politics will continue to be cozy bedfellows.  Thus, people like the Mercers and companies like Cambridge Analytica are sure to maintain their influence on matters that affect billions of less wealthy, less tech-savvy citizens around the globe.  And the scariest part?  We haven’t yet seen the worst of it.  Read:

“One of the things that concerns Howard most is the hundreds of thousands of ‘sleeper’ bots they’ve found. Twitter accounts that have tweeted only once or twice and are now sitting quietly waiting for a trigger: some sort of crisis where they will rise up and come together to drown out all other sources of information.

Like zombies?

‘Like zombies.’”

God help us all.

Enjoy: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage

[brettaresco]

BLROTD for Monday, 3/27/17

You didn’t think I’d let this healthcare thing go by without an appropriate longread, did you?

Thankfully, such a piece has been wrought by Tim Alberta over at Politico, and it is a doozy.  It’s functionally an oral history of the 3ish weeks leading up to the bill’s abrupt death, one highlighted by broken promises, party infighting, and breathtaking presidential ignorance.

The latter is most fully illustrated by Mr. Trump’s dismissal of the fundamental policy points of the bill as “little shit,” which infuriated some Republicans in Congress.  As well it should have.  From Alberta: "'We’re talking about one-fifth of our economy,' a member told me afterward."  Wow.  When a president (who clearly doesn’t know the first thing about healthcare) is more worried about scoring political points than the fate of his citizens under proposed legislation... well, is anybody surprised?

With the exciting chance to write about what could be a defining moment in Trump’s very TBD presidency, Alberta does not disappoint.  He details a series of egregious (but hardly unpredictable) missteps on the part of not only Trump, but other key figures in his administration.  My personal favorite involves an epic smackdown of someone who’s appeared often in these pages, and never for good reasons:

“‘Take one for the team’ was a phrase repeatedly deployed; at one point, after Bannon used it, Joe Barton, a white-haired conservative from Texas, snapped back in response that Bannon was talking to them like children and he didn't appreciate it. The room filled with uncomfortable silence; Bannon backed down and the meeting went on.”

Look at me... I’m giggling like a little schoolgirl.  You think Dick Cheney or Satan would have given up their “power” so easily, Ban-dawg?  Didn’t think so.  But you... you’re not even a paper tiger.  You’re more like a paper football.

But wait, there’s more!  Much has been made about the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus’s role in Trump’s defeat, and this article sheds some light on that.  Alberta writes that at one point, Trump singled out the chair of the Freedom Caucus in a meeting, a humiliation that ultimately led to said chair refusing to lend his support, as much as he may have wanted to.  Trump’s vile character getting in the way of his ideas?  No... that’s not the Donald Trump I know. 

In sum, "faced with his first major test, the president failed—on multiple occasions and on many levels."  Whether Trump continues to rack up such failures remains to be seen, but one thing seems certain: it won’t be for lack of trying.

Enjoy: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/obamacare-vote-paul-ryan-health-care-ahca-replacement-failure-trump-214947

[brettaresco]

BLROTD for Friday, 3/24/17

On the day of Donald Trump’s biggest and most public defeat, it would seem appropriate to feature a piece that highlights his biggest failing as a person: his exceptional untrustworthiness.

I realize I’ve been showing a major Atlantic bias lately, but what can I say?  They’ve put out some compelling #content.  Not all of it I agree with (see yesterday’s entry), but all of it I feel is worth discussing.  Today, James Fallows’ response to Trump’s Muslim world laptop ban takes center stage.  In it, Fallows discusses the dropping of the other shoe with regard to Trump’s trafficking in casual falsehoods.  Fallows basic argument is this: when the president routinely says things that are false - obviously and demonstrably false - how can we ever be sure he has legitimate justifications for his actions?  If, for instance, Trump decided to disband the FBI tomorrow, how could we rule out the possibility that it had something to do with his bogus wiretapping claims?  Unrealistic example, I know, but the point stands.  With regard to the recent laptop ban, some sources have reported that it was spurred by intelligence gathered in a recent raid in Yemen, but how can we be sure that’s true?  How can we be sure it’s not, as has been speculated, a furtive way to advantage American airlines against competitors they feel are unfairly subsidized by foreign governments?

I’ll admit that I’m a little bitter about this column, as it represents a similar take to one I wanted to (and still may) write.  As these BLROTDs have become de facto mini-columns, however, I feel comfortable planting the seed of my column here alongside Fallows’.  Also in the wake of the laptop ban, which affects an upcoming flight of mine through Turkey, I had a stunning realization.  For the first time in my life, I had the sinking feeling that our president doesn’t have the country’s best interests at heart.

I can already hear the people out there saying “But Bush!” or “But Obama!”, but I’m gonna nip those right in the bud.  Bush, as my friend Owen so eloquently put it to me once, was a consensus-builder who surrounded himself with bad people.  Obama... well, people who don’t think Obama cared about America didn’t see his speech in Selma, or watch him cry after Newtown, or appreciate that he passed (however inelegantly) the greatest health care reform this country has ever seen.

But back to Trump.  At best, he’s a loose cannon.  At worst, he’s a traitor to democracy.  If - and this is a big if - his campaign colluded with a foreign power to tip the election in his favor, that’s what Joe Biden would call a big fuckin deal.  Leaving aside that extreme possibility, though, let’s assume the truth is somewhere in the middle.  Let’s assume Trump isn’t working to actively undermine the government he now leads, but he is working solely in service of his own ego.  That his primary concern is not his constituents, nor the rule of law, but instead an amorphous and aggressive notion of “winning” at all costs.

I believe that most citizens would choose to believe their public servants have integrity.  Even at a time of historically low faith in government (driven by our two-party system, I would argue), it’s banked into our government to assume that representatives are representing the people who put them into power.  Sure, those representatives may abuse their stations to enrich themselves or benefit their friends, but they at least pay lip service to the greater idea of democracy.

Donald Trump pays lip service to nothing.  He has demonstrated no ideals, no morals, and no compunction about insulting and intimidating all those in his path.  He’s never been a public servant.  He ran a campaign on the premise that all public servants were, by nature, liars and blowhards, and that he was the only one who could fix everything.  So of course, now that he has been elected, he sees no reason to change.  A man so driven by the pretense of adulation that he holds rallies instead of governing simply cannot be given the benefit of the doubt.

That, in essence, is Fallows’ argument as well.  We simply take issue with different aspects of Trump’s lack of fitness to lead.  I certainly agree with him, and he may agree with me.  After all, our assessments are basically cousins- a man who does not care about the truth (or have a desire to learn) cannot possibly understand what’s best for the country, because the foundation of our government is trust.  At least it should be.

As Donald Trump sits in the White House, the foundation appears to be crumbling.

Enjoy: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/trumps-credibility-crisis-arrives/520347/