A Halloween Thought

All ghost stories are optimistic, not scary. They assume we continue after death, even if our afterlife ambitions always seem to be fixated on afflicting or terrorizing the living.

If you were a spirit, free from the need for food, water or bathroom facilities and all the time in eternity at your “fingertips”, wouldn't you think of better things to do, like world travel or catching up with other deceased acquaintances? Imagine chatting philosophy with Socrates and Samuel Clemens or exchanging poetic bon mots with Dorothy Parker? What do any of them think of Kanye West? Have any of them ever voted post mortem in American elections? That would be interesting to know. Maybe you’d organize with other ghouls to protest shoddy cemetery maintenance?

Halloween night frightening might be fun, but doing it 365 days a year for all eternity would bore me to death!

Putin's Coup Has Already Failed

Keep in mind that Putin isn't as smart as he thinks he is. For his social media machinations to be really effective, we should never have found out about them, but we did -- in real time. Mueller even knows the names of Putin's GRU deputies and how they carried out his disinformation campaign. We know all about his troll farms and his hacking efforts and we are now on guard.

Putin should never have selected a total buffoon like #WhiteSupremacistTraitorTrump to be his pawn, but he did. What an imperfect vessel he chose to overturn the United States! The catch for Putin is that only an utter fool would be stupid enough to collaborate in his grandiose world domination scheme that seems pulled out of a 1960's James Bond movie, so it always was going to be a lose-lose proposition.

Everyone not in the Trump Cult (and they are a minority) sees him for what he is. Putin underestimates the intelligence of most of the American people and the resilience of our Constitutional Republic. He doesn't appreciate the checks and balances scattered throughout our tri-cameral federated political structure, or the power every citizen has to resist. He was able to take advantage of a temporary crack in the social media influence wall and now we are alerted to his activities. You can fool some of the people all of the time, but not all of the people all of the time.

Putin has not gained sanction relief and probably never will. His dreams of a reconstituted Soviet Union will never happen. Russia remains a third-rate kleptocracy teetering on the verge of another political collapse. He has already lost.

Hang in there.

The Statue of Liberty Protest as a Pseudo Event

The Statue of Liberty protest was all about optics, not disruption.The people whose vacations were disrupted were random tourists from all over the world, not Trump policy makers or even his supporters. Disruption as part of a political protest works best if the entities being disrupted matter. 

Occupying a representative's office is disruptive. Marching en masse down Pennsylvania Avenue is disruptive. Blocking a major highway is disruptive. Boycotting a company to protest their political stance is disruptive. Working to make sure everyone eligible to vote CAN vote is disruptive. Showing up November 6 and voting the bastards out is disruptive.



In The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America Daniel J. Boorstin wrote about the nature of pseudo events. Boorstin defined a pseudo-event as an ambiguous truth that appeals to people’s desire to be informed. He argued that being in the media spotlight was a strong incentive for public figures to stage artificial events, which became real and important once validated by media coverage.

Shutting down a national monument is an optics generating pseudo event. Not dismissing it's effectiveness as a one day pseudo event, just disputing it as disruption or as effective in bringing about real change. For Federal officials on scene it was par for the course. They train for just this kind of thing. For families whose vacations were affected, it was disruptive. Is that who we should be targeting? 

It's not a question whether disrupting a family’s vacation is trivial. It's a question of effective protest affecting the parties responsible for an issue. 

At this point we don't really need optic events to raise awareness about what's happening at the border. All of America is aware. We need actions that stop the Trump administration from carrying out their racist policies. Inconveniencing Stature of Liberty tourists does nothing to accomplish this. I don't doubt Therese Okoumou's sincerity. I just question her tactics. 

There have been 700+ marches against Trump's border policies in just the last two weeks. More attention-getting actions aren't necessary. 

Ms. Okoumou's type of "protest", scaling a national monument's base (not to the top mind you, just the base), is really a sign of impotence. Terrorists follow the same logic. "I can't really attack the powers causing the problem, so I'll attack innocents to raise awareness." 

One difference between Ms. Okoumou and terrorists is she didn't put anyone in actual danger except herself (and the police who had to "rescue" her). Another is that there actually are other actions that directly affect Trump and his lackeys she could have attempted: 

1. Work with those people and organizations trying to identify separated family members. 

2. Document ICE's movement of children in and out of the Bronx facility and other places with 24/7 surveillance.

3. Contribute time to staff the pro bono attorneys who are working to reunite the families in court.

4. Work with local political organizations to ensure Democrats take back Federal and State governments in November.


I'm sure other more creative, knowledgeable people than me could come up with other possibilities.
Perhaps none of these suggestions would have been as attention-grabbing as climbing the base of the Statue of Liberty. Perhaps it was actually a valid "Kodak Moment". But perhaps they would have accomplished more.


Due to her grandstanding, Ms. Okoumou will be spending a lot of time in court and perhaps in jail. That time could be better spent.