Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie: Free Speech and Violence in America and the World

Southern Senator Defends the "Honor" of the South from Insult

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
^{--The First Amendment, U.S. Constitution}

American Bar Association on “Hate Speech”:
Hate speech is speech that offends, threatens, or insults groups, based on race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, or other traits. Should hate speech be discouraged? The answer is easy—of course!....In this country there is no right to speak fighting words—those words without social value, directed to a specific individual, that would provoke a reasonable member of the group about whom the words are spoken. For example, a person cannot utter a racial or ethnic epithet to another if those words are likely to cause the listener to react violently. 

The ACLU position:

If we do not come to the defense of the free speech rights of the most unpopular among us, even if their views are antithetical to the very freedom the First Amendment stands for, then no one's liberty will be secure. In that sense, all First Amendment rights are "indivisible."... We should not give the government the power to decide which opinions are hateful. At the same time, freedom of speech does not prevent punishing conduct that intimidates, harasses, or threatens another person, even if words are used. Threatening phone calls, for example, are not constitutionally protected.

What are the limits of free speech in America?

What do we do when people use their free speech to deny that other people have a right to free speech?

How do we accommodate a  group  which cleaves to the idea of "blasphemy" and baldly states it will not tolerate the free speech of those who live around them in their adopted countries? At what point does this presence of an intolerant cohort in a tolerant land constitute an invasion or a threat to the existence of the free state?

  

Oliver Wendell Holmes famously limited the right to free speech with his remark: “The right to free speech does not extend to the right to cry ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater.”  (When there is no fire.) In this case, speech is a form of action which results inevitably, in physical consequences.  Crying fire means, inevitably, a stampede. Shouting “nigger” does not mean a response in action is inevitable, however much that action may be probable.

When you start down that road, what of the man who stands up on a platform and exhorts a crowd: "Kill all the Niggers!" when there are colored people in the crowd?  The ACLU would say he has that right—it’s the people he’s exhorting who do not have the right to respond with violence. Only if he points to a specific Black man in the crowd and says, "Kill that particular Nigger!" does his speech lose protection.

The ACLU achieves consistency in its absolutulist opposition to any form of restriction of free speech, but absolutism—for all its virtues of consistency—fails in the face of the tangled woof of reality, as is the case for the theater or the crowd with the rope.

Western Europe and America are now faced with the quandary of not wanting to limit the individual  his freedom to express himself, but facing the paradox of having to deal with an individual who wants to express the idea that other people cannot express their own ideas--who rejects free speech as a condition for discussion.

And what is “speech”? 

If burning a flag on the steps of the Capitol in Washington, DC is an expressive act of free speech, what of the man who riddles with bullets the building which houses Charlie Hebdo in Paris but causes no bodily harm to any person?  Or, how about the man who throws a pitcher of blood on a Planned Parenthood building? If no person is harmed, if the act is “symbolic” then is it “speech”? In the case of Bong Hits for Jesus, unfurling a banner, wordlessly, was not considered protected speech because of who did it,( a student), who, the Supreme Court said, has no right to free speech. So in this country, we say only some people have the right to free speech.

It is probably not a coincidence the right to freedom of religion is juxtaposed with the right to free speech, in the First Amendment. It is, and has been, religion, which has fostered the idea of “blasphemy,” i.e. speech which contradicts Gospel or the official party line of the Church, or, as the religious would say, "God's Will." (Nifty trick that, knowing "God's Will.") Some religions have attempted to restrict not just free speech but free thought: Having "impure thoughts" is something you have to go to confession for and be absolved of.

So now we have crowds in Pakistan rioting over cartoons, after Charlie Hebdo replies to violence with a multi million issue of cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammad.  Of course, angry crowds are exercising free speech, until they do more than talk.

The problem here, at core, is a war of cultures. You have one culture, that of the fundamentalist, which says free speech is not as important as righteousness. The fundamentalist says, if you draw a cartoon, write a novel or an article which insults Islam, then taking violent action against you is justifiable, escalating from words (or drawings)   to the bullet or the bomb is justified by the Word of the Prophet and of Allah.

In this case, we have no basis for discussion—they are advocating the overthrow of not our government, but the most essential pillar on which our government stands, the tolerance of hearing opposing opinions.  How can you have democracy without hearing all sides? The jihadist with the gun says, “No, you may not say what you are thinking.”

In that scenario, then freedom as it is defined in the American Constitution, ceases to exist. As basic as the right of free speech may be to Liberty, without a government to enforce it, without existence of that government and its values, there can be no Liberty, only the rule of the sword. 

It is, to Mad Dog’s understanding, still illegal in the United States of America to advocate the overthrow of the United States government. (Smith Act US Code 2385) In a sense, to advocate the abolition of free speech is to advocate the destruction of the government which is grounded on free speech. In that sense, the ACLU is dead wrong. A sect which claims it can silence all those who disagree with them is advocating the destruction of the government, the Constitution and all that goes with it. To say we must accept those who advocate against the First Amendment is to say we must meekly accept a beheading of our most fundamental right. Sorry, ACLU, you lost Mad Dog there.

Here in the USA, we have laws against “hate speech.”  In those laws, we have the ascendance of concern for preventing violence over the concern for free speech. But we must realize the power of words to provoke violence is only potent in  people who are not sophisticated enough to simply let words drift off into the air.

Sophisticated Laddies 

How many times has Mad Dog seen “fighting words” escalate in heat and intensity until blows were exchanged?  Often enough, but mostly this happened when the people involved were young and/or unsophisticated greasers. 


Well educated people simply have more training and more options; the ignorant, the untrained simply grow tongue tied and frustrated and lash out with fists, knives, whatever is available. 

The ABA’s position, that “fighting words” ought to be banned is sophomoric. The fact is, every citizen has to be educated in one basic principle: You cannot meet speech with violent physical action. An insult cannot justify a shove, a punch, a knife thrust or a bullet. That is a line even the most simple minded American child must be taught, and that is a line which cannot be crossed, no matter what that kid says about your sister or your mother.("Sticks and stones"...) And the ABA is foolish enough to define “fighting words” as being “without social value.” And then compounds the idiocy by adding that such words would be expected to “provoke” a “reasonable person” into violence. Provoke into violence? A reasonable person? Now that is the definition of a non sequitur: If he is provoked into violence by words, he is by definition, not reasonable.  This comes from a group of lawyers?

You don’t see fist fights in the British House of Commons, because angry M.P.’s have the verbal tools to skewer their opponents, and the training to restrain physical confrontation. Not true of the United States Congress, where an inarticulate, hot blooded, Southerner beat a Northerner into a blood pulp for “insulting” the South. Right on the floor of the Capitol. 

The truth is, the cartoons published by Charlie Hebdo looked to Mad Dog’s eye, not all that different from the cartoons published by the Nazis in the run up to Kristallnacht. The Nazi cartoons were part of a program to stoke up hate. 

Would Mad Dog have allowed them to be published in the USA? 
You bet. 

It wasn’t the cartoons which threw bricks through windows.  Outside of the world of “Roger Rabbit,” cartoons cannot heave bricks, or drop safes on people’s heads.

But that is not to say the Charlie Hebdo cartoons were artful, effective, or anything other than peurile. Mad Dog has not seen a single Charlie Hebdo cartoon which could hold a candle to anything by Herblock. The cartoons Mad Dog has seen are more Three Stooges than Thomas Nast.

Well, at least we spread the hate equitably 

There is, of course, the issue of self censorship. We all engage in this daily, when we avoid using certain four letter words and we we exercise what we think of as "good taste" in polite company to keep the discussion going, rather than derailing it. For Mad Dog's money, that is exactly what Charlie Hebdo does not do: Their cartoons do not stimulate discussion but derail it.  And by evoking stereotypic images which had once been used in the past to stoke hatred, Charlie Hebdo does not bring light, but only heat to the discussion of the role of religion in a civilized society.  

The French have a very different history with respect to church and state. There was Joan of Arc, and the deportations of Jews to the concentration camps, and there is the Catholic Church, which is so important ceremonially, if not psychologically in France, and there is the law which forbids Muslim girls from wearing head scarves in school. 
So maybe this is simply a case of culture gap, but Mad Dog is not a fan of Charlie. Je ne suis pas Charlie, c'est tout.

Was This Hate Speech or Free Speech, Nazi Style?

And now we are going to have New Hampshire legislators packing guns on the floor of the New Hampshire legislature.

That ought to expand the meaning of free speech in the Granite State and give new meaning to Live Free or Die.

Thank You Jesus: Now They Have to Govern!

It's a very hard choice: Who should we root for in the race to become Speaker of the House?

My long running favorite has been Louie Gohmert, who famously said about the adolescents streaming across the Texas border as refugees from the murderous gangs in Honduras, "They've committed at least 7,695 sexual assaults. You want to talk about a war on women? This administration will not defend the women of America from criminal aliens! By the thousands! By the hundreds of thousands!"
When that border with Texas was roiling, Mr. Gohmert was there to sound the alarm:  "We all know Al Qaeda has massed on the Mexican border. We have people that are trained to act Hispanic when they are radical Islamists."

I know every American woman, at least every white American woman, felt safer just knowing Mr. Gohmert had their backs (perhaps a poor choice of phrase).

But, how can one not root for a man named Ted Yoho?  (It is so tantalizingly close to Yahoo, it's just not even worth mentioning, really.) 
And the man does not disappoint. 
Decrying the Food Stamp program as an unwarranted waste of taxpayer money, Mr. Yoho said, "I think there are 330 million people starving, at least three times a day: we call it breakfast, lunch and dinner."
Which is to say, everyone is hungry in America, why should taxpayers coddle those hungry people who are hungry because they cannot afford food?
From the look of Mr. Yoho's belly, it is clear this is a man who knows a thing or two about hunger.

It's a tough choice. 

But, for Mad Dog, the tipping point has to be Mr. Gohmert is from Texas, which ought to count for something. And how can you not vote for a man who knows where the real strength of this great nation resides?  
"We've got some people who think Shariah law oughta be the law of the land; forget the Constitution."
And we know to whom Mr. Gohmert is referring (Remember Mr. Obama's middle name is Hussein.)
"But the guns are there, the Second Amendment is there, to make sure all the rest of the amendments are followed."

And don't forget Justice Scalia. He is there with that Second Amendment, just in case there's a jam in the firing chamber of that M-16.

Facing Forward: 2015. Perception, Image, Reality

This time of year brings families together (for better or for worse), evokes joys of Christmases past, kindles fires at office Christmas parties and hangovers after the ball drops in Times Square.  But for Mad Dog, the event he most looks forward to  is the arrival of that distinctive brown calendar in his mailbox. 

You know the one--from the Seabrook nuclear power plant. 

It is one of those reassuring constants in an ever changing world. With the closure of the Vermont nuclear power plant, and with Europe reacting to Fukishima by turning away from nuclear power, it is an anchor in stormy seas to get that calendar.

Chocked full of needed reminders like, "Owners of household pets should make a list of places outside of the emergency planning zone that would accept your household pets, such as boarding kennels, friends and relatives outside the affected area, or pet-friendly motels."  Wouldn't have thought of that. But what I really would not have thought of: "Proof of current rabies vaccination will be required for admission to any shelter."

Other points to review: "If you must go outside (for example to bring in a child playing outside) cover your nose and mouth with a folded, damp cloth. Go back inside as soon as you can."  Why the cloth should be folded is not entirely clear. This also leaves unclear whether to bring a cloth for the child, but some things you just have to figure out for yourself. The calendar people cannot do all your thinking for you, and there is only so much space in the calendar.

So, now we have children and dogs taken care of, so let's be optimistic. If we have time to evacuate rather than "shelter in place" (remember to close your windows!), we have this handy list of things to bring: First on the list--this calendar--which tells you just how important the calendar people think their work is.
Also, "personal items" (and we are reminded eyeglasses and dentures are personal), medical equipment including life support equipment--without this calendar you would have never thought of that--and your checkbook and credit cards. (You may need money to cover expenses not covered by the Seabrook station, like movies at your motel room.)

The one glaring omission, especially in New Hampshire, is "and don't forget to bring your guns." It may sound like carping, but really, how could you forget the most important household item in any New Hampshire home?

Just to fill the void, Mad Dog posts this heart warming Christmas theme image:

Mad Dog is sure this is what your Christmas morning looked like. He certainly hopes so.

Looking forward to "sheltering in place" or evacuation in 2015 is so invigorating, but first, we must remember the past is prologue, so we have to review 2014, which surely has got to be the year of grasping defeat from the jaws of victory.

2014 should have been a great high bubble of good feeling, but there was that one thing--the midterm elections, which served as a concrete example of how perception can trump reality.

The Democrats, and their President, having saved General Motors from collapse, (with all the tidal wave of consequences that would have generated,) having spent enough money to keep the economy rising, if not surging, having finally got Obamacare online and working so people from Kentucky to New York City now can go to doctors and dentists, having presided over a stock market boom, having seen gasoline and heating oil prices fall, having all that good news, the Democrats fled like lemmings racing head long over the cliff, and Democratic candidates refused to admit they had even voted for President Obama. 

What that got us in New Hampshire was this:

Would you go to prayer breakfast with this man?

Frank Guinta, New Hampshire's very own entry into the Senator Joseph McCarthy look alike and reincarnation contest. Mr. Guinta wants to privatize Social Security and Medicare and he is going back to Washington to deconstruct government with his fellow Tea Party Republicans, to vote for the pipeline and to vote to kill Obamacare just as soon as he can.

That effort may not be necessary, as there is a Supreme Court case now which seeks to overturn Obamacare on the basis that the federal subsidies which make it work were not actually part of the law and by invoking them, President Obama exceeded his executive powers. As one of the Republican analysts noted on NPR, this would mean millions who just got insurance will lose it, that pre existing conditions rules will return, that the cost savings to the medical system which have already been seen will all be lost, but all of that is less important than the compelling principle that this President, and future Presidents (but most importantly THIS President) will learn the lesson you cannot over step your bounds. This is a country of laws, after all.

Mostly, the lesson Mad Dog takes from this last election is that Democrats lose when they are too meek, when they fail to state the obvious: Medicare and Social Security are not about to collapse, will not bankrupt the country and in fact work quite well. The federal government can be and often IS part of the solution, not the problem. Obamacare, even in Kentucky, has worked well, better than expected in fact. That government spending in a recession is more important than worrying about a deficit and in fact that our government here in the USA saved us from going over all sorts of cliffs, fiscal and otherwise, while European governments, determined to cut spending when Paul Krugman warned them not to, failed their people and their people paid the price.  

Voters, citizens, need to hear this. Sometimes they figure it out--they did reject Scott Brown, after all. 
And that must have been difficult. They could have perceived him as:

But, instead they saw him as:

And, so at least in New Hampshire, and, unfortunately almost only in New Hampshire, the perception caught up with reality, for reasons unknown.

The most important thing, Mad Dog learned in 2014 is we must extirpate Senator Kelly Ayotte from Washington, and to do that, we have to start in 2015. 

I look so cute in red, and Sarah Palin is teaching me to shoot.

What we found in 2014 is it takes time to change perceptions, and it takes organization and nerve and analysis and it may take new people who can think differently.  Mad Dog was privileged to work with a small group of dedicated, talented people led by a relentless, brave and effective general who tried to change perceptions about Scott Brown, but they were, in the end, unable to bring much firepower to bear. Entrenched party officials among New Hampshire Dems got weak kneed. Oh, we can't say THAT. Oh, we'd stir up things too much. We cannot present something which might be seen as salacious, not to mention, seditious, before a gathering attended by a former President, even if that President is Bill Clinton. Can you imagine offending Bill Clinton with salacious?

So Rush Limbaugh went unanswered and the public's mind was left awash in a tide which swept in from the right.  Perceptions were not managed.

And perception is a mutable thing.
This is how Republicans perceive the leading Democratic contender for 2016:

This is how her supporters see her:

But this is the person Mad Dog would like to see in 2016, mainly because his perception of her is she is a fighter who is not afraid to state the bald truth forcefully, without running every sentence past a focus group. But who knows what any of these people are really like?

Don't know her, but she really looks so decent

But this is the person we may get. And, from what Mad Dog knows of him, while he might be able to win, we may ultimately regret that. It must be admitted, Democratic Presidents do have this thing for getting seduced into long wars. For this guy, that's something he thinks is in the American genome, and he's happy about that. 

James Webb, Who Channels Warriors

Having said all that, Mad Dog has to admit, his own self perception is as rife with fantasy and delusional thinking,  as detached from reality,  as any.  When he looks in the mirror, when he tries to sprint 90 feet, when he whiffs at a slow curve ball, he knows what he really is.  But when he flirts with the fetching blond female canvasser at Democratic headquarters, who is trying to send him out to cover Seabrook in Democratic paper, in a snowstorm, he sees himself thusly:

We all have our blind spots.

Dead Cops as Stage Props: Pat Lynch and NYPD Blue Union

The head of the police union, which has been working for some time without a contract with the city, said the blood of the two murdered policeman, shot in their car by a lunatic, is on the mayor's hands, because, presumably, the mayor did not say enough to defend his police officers who were video'd killing a large black man with a choke hold.  The police, some police at least, are also upset about the mayor's ending "Stop and Frisk" procedures, whereby Black and Hispanic men can be thrown up against a wall and searched for weapons, despite the Constitution's constraints about unreasonable search.

If only, Lynch was saying, the police had been able to throw that maniac  up against a wall and search him, they would be alive today, but instead they had to be sitting in their patrol car, looking the other way,  just waiting to be killed.

Or so Mr. Lynch would have us believe.

Mr. Lynch thinks the mayor should ask forgiveness. The police turn their back on the mayor.

Mad Dog, however, believes it is Mr. Lynch who should ask forgiveness, from the families of these two officers, who he has used as a stage prop for his own political agenda. Mr. Lynch is torn from the pages of "House of Cards," as cynical and nakedly manipulative as any character, and once again life imitates art.

Mad Dog is reminded of that famous scene from the Army/McCarthy hearings where the defense counsel, a Mr. Welch, looks Senator Joseph McCarthy in the eye and says, "Have you no sense of decency, at long last? Have you no sense of decency at all."

Biggest Stories of 2014: Labor Unions, Lost in the 21st Century

As the governor of Wisconsin recently demonstrated, running against labor unions is good for the bottom line.

In “Citizen Koch,” a documentary about the Koch brothers, these two concerned citizens loathe labor unions as demons from the darkest pits of hell and they make clear their money sent to the governor of Wisconsin to defeat his recall and to win re election is drawn from the well of their contempt for labor unions.

          Full disclosure: Mad Dog’s grandfather was an ardent union man.  He suffered for his union and one of his favorite quips was that a bayonet is a weapon with a worker on either end. The real struggle in the world, from grandfather’s point of view, had little to do with nations but with classes: workers vs bosses.

           Anyone who has read Howard Zinn knows how ruthlessly captains of industry have fought unions and how they bought all the politicians they needed to do this.

            Ronald Reagan broke the air traffic controllers’ union and Maggie Thatcher broke coal unions and virtually every union she could get her hands on. And it wasn’t just the owners and barons of industry who thanked them: They were hailed by the general public for their efforts.

         But, even Mad Dog’s own father, looking at a strike by professional football players said, “I’m all for the workers. But these guys aren’t workers. They’re millionaires fighting with billionaires.”

         There are some unions which simply fail to win public support.

         On a recent trip to France, Mad Dog heard many stories, from many sources about the evils of unions.  When the lock workers, who operate the forty odd locks along the Seine went on strike, it meant the barge captains and workers could not haul their loads on the river; it meant the cruise boats and restaurant boats and all their workers could not go to work.  When pilots for Air France go on strike, thousands of people sleeping on floors of airports become easy converts to the Koch brothers’ point of view.

            There was once a time when a strike by one set of workers triggered sympathy strikes from other workers; no longer—the workers who are idled by another worker’s strike resent the loss of pay. They see no brotherhood with other workers; all they care about is how much they have been inconvenienced.

           When Market Basket employees went on strike, the customers were not much inconvenienced: They could shop at some other store. The farmers who relied on Market Basket were hurt, but there were not all that  many farmers.

            Union workers can strike without alienating the public at large when they are in manufacturing, when the company they work for produces a product for which there are competitors. If the workers hold up production, then the company suffers, but not the general public. That puts the workers in a good position to pressure the owners without losing public support.

             But in the 21^st century increasingly, most workers do not produce a product in a competitive environment;  air traffic controllers, airline pilots, city garbage collectors, river lock operators, city school teachers are in the service economy and often in positions where the strikes they impose create widespread resentment and public antipathy. Members of these unions have shot themselves, not just in the foot, but considerably higher up, and the unions have hemorrhaged crucial public support.

          Union rules, it must be admitted, have too often  thwarted the mission of the companies they work for: when a hospital needs to clean out operating rooms quickly but the housekeepers’ union refuses to allow workers to get the job done in 30 minutes (which is what it takes in non union hospitals) but insists on 60 minutes so only half the number of surgeries can get done daily, that hurts the hospital, and ultimately, if the hospital goes into the red, it hurts the workers.

Unions exist to defend the rights of the workers, but when they forget that the mission of the employer is also important and, ultimately, important for the worker, they wind up hurting everyone, workers included. When a union stage hand has to move a chair on a set rather than allowing an actor to simply pick it up and place it down in a better spot, the definition of work and who can do it reaches absurd proportions.

          Unions have, over decades, done far more good for this country than harm. Safety at the workplace, a fair wage for a day’s work, the emergence of a strong, stable middle class all owe much to union strength.  Structured working groups of workers have identified inefficiencies in production, which would never have reached the managers had the institutionalized system of worker in-put not been forced by the unions—so cars, airplane engines and a whole range of things have been produced better as a result of unions. Even the five day work week, not to mention overtime, has meant workers can actually have enough time to shop, recreate and, by their spending, drive the economy.

      But, philosophically, Americans love to hate groups, and Americans love to believe they can make it on their own. We do not like to think about the idea Elizabeth Warren has emphasized: We are all using stuff made by others,  from roads to education. We are all interdependent. The hard driving capitalist wants to think he is special and he deserves all the money he’s made because he’s worked harder and smarter. Admitting we are all in this together and that even when we excel, we have stood on the shoulders of others to do this--well, that's something we find hard to swallow.

       The welfare queen, that mythical woman who lived the high life without working, by simply exploiting the welfare system remains a fixture in the American mind. When uneducated or less educated people exploit the system, they are reviled. When someone who has graduated from Harvard summa cum laude succeeds, well, he’s earned it. But he didn’t go to Harvard on his own dime. When two engineers invent Google or Microsoft or Apple or Facebook, well they are simply the cream rising to the top. And there is some truth to that. But cream cannot form in a vacuum. You need a pot.

          Mad Dog has no solution to offer, and likely all of the above is well known to union leaders, academics, politicians and corporate boards. It is a rare day when the little guys can win in this environment. The Market Basket story was the exception which proved the rule: Here, an avaricious goon of a corporate oligarch tried to wrest half of the cash reserve of the company for his own bank account, with, predictably, the acquiescence of a board of directors.  But he was opposed by the “good Arthur” who said the money belonged to the workers, to the corporation, and, ultimately to the customers, before it belonged to any stock holders. This was a new idea, that a company has more than a single raison d’etre: That is,  it exists, yes to make money for the shareholders, but it has other obligationsm  to its workers, to its customers, to American society, to all those who make its continued viability a success.

          Capitalists have successfully argued that the only thing which should matter for every company listed on the NYSE is to generate profit and return for investors. This position has the virtue of simplicity and clarity.  It is an idea which should be dissected and butchered and hung out to dry.

          For Mad Dog’s money, the Market Basket story was the story of the year.

          Long live King Arthur (T).

Torture R US: Who the We Is

In her New Yorker piece, Janet Mayer reviews the 500 page report from the Senate Select Intelligence Committee which details the systematic torture program carried out by the CIA, in the name of protecting the American people from another 9/11.

"Before it was released, [it] came under attack from Republicans, including Dick Cheney, who, although he hadn't read it, called it 'full of crap.' Senator Mitch McConnell, the incoming majority leader, castigated it as 'ideologically motivated and distorted."

Mad Dog well recalls when President George W. Bush responded to the photos from Abu Gharib prison from the oval office saying, "This isn't who we are."

But, in fact, it turned out it is exactly who we are. The question, of course, is who the "we" is.  You and I may be repelled by torture, but the sadists who find work at the CIA are also "we."  So are the Congressmen and Senators who support torture, if not in name, in practice. So is Joe Sixpack, who snarls at the wusses, mostly Democrats, who shrink from doing the unpleasant but necessary thing. 

Now, Mad Dog hastens to add, he knew scores of people who worked at the CIA, although, for the most part, they were not on the "operational" side of the agency. They were analysts, and they were, typically, erudite, analytic, and not, at least overtly, cruel or sadistic.  

But then you have Dick Cheney raising the specter of terrorists setting off a nuclear bomb in Washington, DC or New York every time anyone questions the centrality of torture to protecting the homeland.

What the report shows, in fact, "In all twenty cases most widely cited by the CIA, as evidence that abusive interrogation methods were necessary, the same information could have been obtained, and frequently was obtained, through non-coercive, methods. Further, the interrogations often produced false information, ensnaring innocent people, sometimes with tragic results."

And, forgotten in all this are those people still held at Guantanamo, without charges, without trial, let alone due process. What the Congress has said--and if the Congress isn't a "we" who is?--is that we do not have to honor the principles of the Constitution when it comes to what we do as a government, as a people off shore. The Constitution only protects US Citizens when they are on US soil.

There is something bizarre about the release of Alan Gross after five years in a Cuban prison for the crime of trying to help Jews in Cuba to hook up to the internet. Mr. Gross was abused, lost most of his teeth, and emerged, at age 60 something, just barely alive. We all look at the Cuban regimen which would do this and decry their ruthlessness. But just down the road, at the other end of the island, we have American held prisoners, who have never been charged with a crime, never had the benefit of even a kangaroo court, were just simply imprisoned--oh, excuse me, they are not "prisoners" they are "detainees." Some for more than a dozen years. They are our "guests." We do not believe in due process for these people, because, you know, they were captured in Afghanistan and they must be bad.

So, who are we? 

Who we is, apparently, is a nation of people who can be stirred into a frenzy of fear, and once that happens all restraints are dissolved and we can bring people to near drowning, torture them in other creative ways, hold them prisoner forever, as long as folks in the homeland can sleep well at night, secure they live in the home of the brave, land of the free.

Postcard from France

When people say, "I had never been here before but I felt like I was coming home," what they are really saying is, "I felt very happy just being here."  There are so many places where and people whom you simply have to endure in life, but there are some people and places which make you happy simply by their presence.

For Mad Dog, New York was one of those places, but not London or Rome or even Dublin. Paris is one of those places, for Mad Dog , as it was for Hemingway and for James Baldwin and for David Sedaris and for so many other Americans. Hemingway said, "The only problem in Paris was deciding where to be happiest," and Mad Dog now understands.

Paris has the energy and eccentricity of New York; but it is  as if New York were run by the Catholic Church. France is very Catholic. Mad Dog is not sure how seriously the French take the teachings of the Church, but they do not ignore it. There is no separation of church and state here enshrined in law, and Mad Dog prefers the American approach, but he has to admit, the presence of the Church here adds a creative tension.

France has been a surprise:

French economy: The country looks affluent and well groomed. The roof of every house is so superior to what we have in New Hampshire. No asphalt shingles: Every roof is slate. Along the Seine, in Rouen, is a long asphalt road and it is filled with affluent looking joggers in Spandex, and along the river are one sports club after another, with people jogging on treadmills overlooking the Seine. No jogging in basements in front of TVs running sappy Netflix movies.

French women: Their faces show bones, zygomatic arches. They have great style. They dress in black with spalshes of color. They wear high heeled shoes in the streets of Paris and Rouen, and the streets are cobblestone, which means they have to be determined to wear those heels. They take off the heels when they get to the office, but in the street, they are on display.

In conversation, Parisian women make prolonged eye contact; Mad Dog was thrilled a little by this, until  he realized there was no seduction there--they were simply thinking, "What language is it he is speaking? Certainly, not French."

Normandy:   For an American, this  is different.  Falstaff looking at a soldier's rotting corpse  held his nose and said, "That's glory for you. It stinks." Elizabethan audiences laughed knowingly.  But that would draw no laughs from an American  at Antiem or Gettysburg or at Normandy.

It matters little that most of the American soldiers who died here had no idea what a monstrous evil they were attacking. They were fighting for their friends and, yes, for some idea of country.  They knew they had become part of something much larger, and that ennobled them. 

Have there been any other wars or military deaths like those of World War II, since World War II?  

Most of the American warriors in 1944 could have been at home, did not need the paycheck. 

Food:  The French eat smaller portions. And they have some things we do not have in New Hampshire. His first day, Mad Dog was served some sort of hot chocolate which was heroin in a cup. From that moment onward, all he wanted was another fix. He has yet to discover the name of this stuff, tragically lost after that first sample.  The bread and cheese are also unlike anything we have in New Hampshire. 

French rain: It is the type of rain which invites the use of an umbrella, and couples walk along in a sort of umbrella intimacy one rarely sees in the States.

In New Hampshire, we are comfortable. We walk along the seacoast, and we love it, as we ought to love it. But sometimes, we have to remind ourselves we are part of something bigger. Mad Dog looked out from Omaha Beach and realized, on the other side of that ocean lay Plaice Cove.

Going to France is tame compared to travelling to China or India--there is much more here to give you your bearings. Paris  does not take the same courage as Beijing or Calcutta. But it's a start. It's worth the effort.