Hi Miriam,
Your trip to China sounds a lot like my trip to the USSR. As I said, we
took the overnight train from warsaw to Moscow. The train was nice. You
could buy food on the train, but it was very expensive, so we were advised
to buy snacks in Warsaw and eat them on the train. I do recall buying one
or two bottles of beer on the train. When we reached the border of the
USSR, we had an extended stop. Apparently the Soviets used a different
gauge track. The carriages underneath each car had to be changed. This
process took about two hours, and we were not allowed to leave the train.
While this was going on, I really had to use the toilet. We were admonished
not to flush the toilet while the train was stopped, but i forgot, and got
to hear a lot of cursing in Russian from outside the train.
Also, Russian customs agents came through the train checking our papers.
Interestingly enough, they were all women, but they were the most scary
women I ever encountered. They spoke in very loud commanding voices and
shined bright flashlights. There was one older woman in our group who was
having trouble finding her papers, and they threatened to take her off the
train. Several people opened her luggage and eventually the papers were
found.
in Poland and Russia we were steered to foreign currency shops where only
foreigners could shop. We were constantly approached in both countries by
people who wanted to exchange their currency for ours. We were advised not
to deal with these people because we wouldn't have much of an opportunity to
spend rubles and Russia would not let you take rubles out of the country.
There were a couple of women in our group who didn't take the advice, and
accumulated a lot of rubles, and were going crazy trying to spend them
before we left the country. As far as the USSR was concerned, you dealt
with customs when you entered and when you left the country. You had to
fill out a customs declaration form both when you entered and left, and you
had to retain the form you filled out in the beginning during your travel,
and fill out another one at the border when you left,and both forms had to
jive. If they didn't you were likely to be detained.
I was allowed to take a few kopoechs home as a souvenir.
As for touring, like you, we were expected to stay with our group. one
night, another group member and i snuck off to find a real Russian night
club. We found one, but were constantly tailed by two Russian men in suits.
Probably KGB.
Andy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, September 25, 2020 10:40 AM
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Minority Rule in America
I took both trips in the mid 90's when both countries were encouraging
American tourists to visit. The Russian trip was a cruise on a small cruise
ship which was supposedly constructed in Germany for a Russian tourist
company. I've been on small and large cruise ships. It was the most
uncomfortable cruise ship I've ever been on with no amenities at all. The
food was terrible. The only good think on the ship was the vodka tonics. I
did get to see a good deal of rural Russia, along with towns and big cities
, tourist stuff like the ballet in St. Petersburg. The countryside was so
poor that a young boy tried to sell us carrots that he'd just picked. All
the tourists were just feeling positive because Russia was no longer a
Communist country and because the Russian Orthodox religion was now
permissible. They didn't understand how poor and miserable everyone was
under the new capitalism, except for the new wealthy elite.
Wen I went to China, Hong Kong had not yet reverted to Chinese rule. I think
I went in 96 and that was going to happen in 97. The tourist group with
which I traveled was from a very expensive, classy tourist company, and this
was their first year in China, and the second tour in that first. year. The
first stop was Hong Kong where everything was very very glitzy and
luxurious. People used to go to Hong Kong, just to buy well tailored
clothes. The airport was like a movie set. It was about an hour flight to
Beijing and that airport was like a military compound, dull, olive green,
with guards all over the place. But once tourists were allowed out of the
airport, they were in a protected environment, with hotels and shops
especially for tourists and foreign business travelers. We were shown where
poor people lived, and we traveled to many areas of China. But the food was
made for us. We didn't eat food from street vendors or from places where
Chinese citizens ate. Tourists had to stay with their tour groups and the
tour companies would be thrown out of China if they didn't comply with the
rules. I remember that one woman went off on her own without telling
anyone, because she wanted to see a different tourist attraction than the
one scheduled for the group, and our tour leader was very upset with her.
Part of the trip was a little river cruise to see the Three Gorges, now no
longer existent, because they've been flooded in order to make a huge body
of water in order to build a hydro electric water plant. This required
displacing thousands of people from their homes and a government official
gave an educational talk about this on our cruise. It was beautiful scenery
with a lot of natural, unspoiled landscape when we were there. One could
compare that Chinese river cruise to the Russian river cruise. The Chinese
ship was comfortable. One could contact the main desk by phone like in a
hotel, something not possible on the Russian trip. The food was delicious.
The accommodations were modern and comfortable, if a bit squashed. One could
watch CNN on TV in China, a sort of stripped down version without most of
the international news. I really loved the trip, but I was aware that I was
seeing a very controlled environment, sort of like visiting a movie set. I
remember visiting Mao's tomb with, if I remember correctly, his preserved
body, We stood on a long line and there were huge numbers of people,
peasants from all over the country, who were waiting to visit, waiting on a
much longer line. I remember a park in Woohan with a lot of families with
little girls all dressed up in velveteen dresses, even though the weather
was very hot. And I thought that obviously, not everyone was giving up their
baby girls for adoption, even though I saw so many Chinese baby girls in my
practice. And I discovered that when you eat Peeking Duck in Beijing, it
comes with pieces of bone and fat, along with the meat, wrapped in the
pancakes.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Andy Baracco
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2020 9:39 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Minority Rule in America
The group that I was a part of that visited the USSR visited China two years
later, but, unfortunately, i didn't have the funds at that time to take that
trip. i would be interested in reading more about your experiences in
China. Every American that i know who visited China said that they got sick
on the food.
The food that I ate in the USSR for the most part was the most unappitizing
food that i have ever eaten, but we were constantly told to praise it
because to the average Russian it would be considered ambrosia.
Andy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2020 6:23 PM
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Minority Rule in America
Andy,
I suspect that one of the things that happens is that the rest of the world,
which is not Socialist or Communist, is working to thwart whatever socialist
experiment is tried. That's certainly obvious now with every country which
the US sees as an enemy. Up to this point, it is the dollar that is the
dominant kind of money and it is the current version of capitalism which
rules the world. When the US puts financial sanctions on countries whom it
designates as its enemies, the economies of those countries fail. Of course
there's also human nature. We haven't seen any society in which a ruling
elite hasn't ended up with more power and material goods than the rest of
the population. But I did visit Russia in the 90's after it had become a
capitalist country. There were a lot of very poor people and a lot of people
who wanted to go back to the Communist system. I worked in the adoption
field and in the 90's, there were these Russian orphanages filled with
children, many of whom who were healthy, but many of whom were
neurologically damaged because of the alcoholism of their parents. I assume
that's what the problem was. I was involved with adoptions from a lot of
countries over the years but it was only the ones from Russia in which we
had all kinds of extra procedures to assist adoptive parents in attempting
to determine if, in fact, the disabilities listed on the children's records
were accurate. The only supposedly Communist country I visited was China.
But China is a whole different thing, certainly entirely different from
Russia. The cultures are entirely different. China was certainly
authoritarian, but they seemed a lot more capable somehow. They knew how to
treat their tourists, for one thing. They did a much better job than Russia.
And they were changing the lives of huge numbers of incredibly poor people.
And I wouldn't describe China as Communist with its billionaires who own
luxurious Manhattan apartments. I guess that I don't put my faith in any
given system or government. I want democracies and cooperation. I want
regulation that controls the size of enterprises, insists on businesses
being owned and controlled by the people who work in them, a ban on all
nuclear weapons, and a ban on all interference with other countries. I want
the countries of the world to share natural resources. I do not want war,
including what is considered to be humanitarian interventions, because they
are never what they are said to be. And I want an end to big business and
big profits going to shareholders. I don't care what the system is called,
but I know that people or make financial profit from the labor of others
will end up by doing whatever seems necessary to increase that profit.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Andy Baracco
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2020 5:25 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Minority Rule in America
In a past life, i considered myself a Marxist socialist. I had the
opportunity to travel with a group to Poland, the USSR and Finland. I took
the overnight train from Warsaw to Moscow. I even had the opportunity to
fly in one of those unsafe Russian airliners from moscow to leningrad, now
St. Petersburg.
I also had an opportunity to visit Nicaragua.
What i saw was far different than what i expected. i expected a worker
paradise, and what i found were dreary drab cities and dreary drab people
just trying to survive. Long lines for essential like bread and milk. Meat
was indeed a rare commodity unless you were one of the ruling elite, and
yes, in this communist workers paradise there was a ruling elite.
The simple fact is that socialism and communism are the kind of thing that
looks good on paper, but they just don't work, or haven't worked anywhere
they were tried.
People just aren't going to bust their asses day after day for the love of
the state, with nothing to look forward to except more hard work, and not
much to show for it.
Communal systems work when resources are scarce, and people band together
for security, etc. But when things settle down, people want more. They want
their own land, and to earn and save their own money.
In colonial America communal systems like the puritans worked for a while
when resources were scarce and their was the threat to security from Indian
attacks, etc. but eventually people began to break away from the community
and start their own farms, etc. The same thing happened in Israel with the
kibbutz system. No matter what you do, no matter which social experiment
you try, some kind of capitalism will always emerge. It's just the way it
is. It's just human nature.
Andy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2020 1:27 PM
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Minority Rule in America
Andy,
At this point in my life, I'm too old and have too many health issues to be
involved in political action or organizing. I just read and become
frustrated, and try to let people know about what is going on. I'm
interested to know about your travels because at one time, I also did a good
deal of traveling. I've been to a lot of interesting places in various parts
of the world and I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to have done that.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Andy Baracco
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2020 4:12 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Minority Rule in America
Hi Miriam,
i used to be a lot more interested in foreign affairs than I am now. That's
one of the reasons that i traveled abroad when I had the opportunity.
But these days I have pressing matters in my own life that come to the
forefront. Also, I am the kind of person who gets very frustrated when I
see problems that I can't do anything about. They give me a riproaring
headache that i just don't need right now.
I commend you for your interest and knowledge. Are you yourself involved in
any political organizations or campaigns?
Andy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2020 6:23 AM
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Minority Rule in America
Andy,
I know that not everyone is as interested in foreign affairs as I am. But I
mentioned Belarus because the discussion involves the complex relationships
among the eastern European nations, Russia, and the US. And what is
happening in my life and yours here in the US, is related to the role that
the US chooses to play in the world and how that role impacts on the
financsing of public programs like social security, here in the US.
Additionally, historically, when a country chooses to dominate other
countries throughout the world and develops covert and military mechanisms
for doing so, it ends up using those mechanisms on its own citizens in order
to control them One example of that is the militarization of ur police
forces that has taken place over the past twenty or so years. When citizens
focus only on their own lives as W. Bush recommended when he suggested that
people should stop concentrating on the War on Terror and focus on shopping,
they are handing over control of their country to others and giving up
whatever remnants of democracy we have left.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Andy Baracco
Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2020 10:07 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Minority Rule in America
Well, I have Pressing issues in my life that put Belarus on the back burner.
BTW, I visited Belarus when it was part of the USSR..
Andy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2020 6:45 PM
Subject: [blind-democracy] Minority Rule in America
You might want to listen to today's episode of Moderate Rebels to learn
something more realistic about Belarus than you're hearing from our media
and briefly, in this article.
Miriam
Minority Rule in America
By Matthew Yglesias, Vox
23 September 20
Our various undemocratic institutions are reenforcing each other in a deadly
spiral.
On a blustery November day, I found myself on the Boston Common with what
turned out to be a very small group of protesters. Our view was that Al
Gore, who had clearly gotten more votes than his opponent, should be seated
as the next president of the United States.
It didn't happen, and in fact, the line of argument we pursued - that
democratic legitimacy ought to count for something - wasn't even taken up by
the Gore campaign or Democrats. They instead pursued a legalistic argument
that was denied by a 5-4 majority of conservative Supreme Court justices.
Two decades later, we're staring down the barrel of exactly what I worried
about that November: not an old Constitution with some funny quirks, but a
self-reinforcing spiral of minority rule.
It's time to start doing something about it.
Hardball on a tilted playing field
When Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died in February 2016, Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared it was too close to the date of a
presidential election to hold hearings on the confirmation of a successor.
When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September 2020, McConnell clarified
that the rule only applied to situations in which the Senate majority and
the president are of opposite parties, and that naturally, a replacement for
her should be confirmed as quickly as possible.
The hypocrisy is, of course, galling to liberals who are also frustrated by
the prospect of defeat. But for all the talk of Merrick Garland's "stolen"
Supreme Court seat, McConnell wasn't cheating. He was playing what
Georgetown University Law Center professor Mark Tushnet calls constitutional
hardball, "practices - legislative and executive initiatives - that are
without much question within the bounds of existing constitutional doctrine
and practice but that are nonetheless in some tension with existing
pre-constitutional understandings."
And while you may not like hardball, to an extent, that's the point. This is
a country with elections, and the idea is if politicians' deployment of
hardball tactics becomes unpopular, they'll lose their elections and things
will change.
McConnell's actions were unpopular. Polls showed that voters believed the
Senate should have held hearings on confirming Garland to the Court. And
when the votes were counted in November, Hillary Clinton got more than
Donald Trump and Democratic Senate candidates got more votes than Republican
ones. But the GOP retained a Senate majority, Trump became president, and
Neil Gorsuch sat on the Supreme Court.
The problems with the current American political situation only really come
into view when you zoom out to the whole landscape. Every electoral system
has its quirks, and elected officials are entitled to throw some elbows if
they think it's important. But McConnell's hardball isn't a fair game - his
ideas don't need to be popular to win, and his unfair advantage in one arena
extends its power into other arenas.
The circle of entrenchment
Thurgood Marshall did not want a Republican to nominate his successor. But
in 1988, George H.W. Bush won a historically unusual third GOP term, as
Ronald Reagan's successor. And Justice Marshall's health gave out in October
1991, when he had to step down for medical reasons. This was not yet the era
of constitutional hardball in the US Senate, so a Democratic-controlled body
confirmed Clarence Thomas to succeed him. Thomas's confirmation was nearly
derailed by sexual harassment allegations, but even if the body had handled
Anita Hill's charges more responsibly and blocked Thomas, some other
conservative would have gotten the job.
Nine years later, a 5-4 conservative Supreme Court majority that would not
have existed had Marshall retained his health for one more year cut short
the vote-counting in Florida and ensured that George W. Bush would become
president. One of the five, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, was heard to tell
friends that fall that she preferred a Republican president because then she
could retire with her succession in GOP hands. And retire she did in 2005,
creating the vacancy now held by Justice Samuel Alito.
O'Connor's fellow moderate conservative, Anthony Kennedy, also strategically
retired in 2018 - choosing his timing not only so that a Republican could
pick his replacement but so as to help GOP Senate candidates in a tough
midterm fight.
Public perceptions of the Supreme Court are often dominated by abortion
politics, where O'Connor and Kennedy often sided with the left. But the fact
that both justices preferred GOP-selected replacements is a reminder that
there are many other issues on the docket, and their own view is that on
most matters, they leaned to the right.
That was true on the decisive Bush v. Gore litigation. It was also true of
Kennedy's siding with the right on voting rights, gerrymandering, and
campaign finance issues.
Control of the courts allows Republicans to further tilt the electoral
playing field. Waging judicial politics on a tilted playing field allows
Republicans to control the courts.
Minority rule politics
In 2018, the Democrats won such a landslide in the popular vote that they
were able to overcome the 3-4 percentage point skew of the House map. But
the Senate map gives rural areas 2.5 times the voting power of big cities,
meaning Democrats need to win Senate races by 6 to 7 points.
This puts Democrats at a disadvantage. But the problem is actually more
serious than that. The House gerrymanders, for example, while large are
clearly not insurmountable.
But even when they are surmounted, what you get is a House where the pivotal
members represent seats that Donald Trump won even while he lost the popular
vote. This impacts not just electoral outcomes but actual governance. If a
majority of the House represented anti-Trump districts, then the House would
be politically empowered to act aggressively to check Trump's abuses of
power. But since the Democratic majority relies on Trump crossover voters,
Democrats have hesitated to move aggressively with oversight or to use the
power of the purse to back up the rule of law.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's gamble, which is not too far-fetched, is that
Trump is just too unpopular. By this thinking, if Democrats just put their
heads down and talk about basic policy issues - health care, the pandemic,
the minimum wage - they can hold their majority and Joe Biden can win the
presidency.
But it's a big gamble. Trump would almost certainly be reelected even if he
loses the popular vote by a point or two, and could conceivably be reelected
while losing by three. In the 2018 Senate races overall, Democrats won a
large majority of the votes but lost seats. So on the one hand, there's a
risk Pelosi's gambit fails, Trump retains power, and, having established all
manner of abusive precedents, proceeds to consolidate it. But there's also
the risk that even if Pelosi's bet pays off, Democrats will be unable to
govern.
Constitutional hardball in defeat
In the 2018 midterms in Wisconsin, Democrats swept narrow victories in the
statewide races and secured 53 percent of the votes cast in elections for
the lower house of the state legislature. But because of gerrymandering, the
GOP won more than 60 percent of the seats. And knowing they'd be insulated
from public backlash, the legislature held a special lame-duck session
during which they stripped power from the state executive branch and
reassigned it to themselves. Something similar happened in Michigan that
same year, and in North Carolina two years earlier.
This is another case where minority rule begets minority rule.
Once the minoritarian legislature becomes comfortable with its exercise of
power, it starts gobbling up the other institutions not despite its lack of
democratic legitimacy but because of it. Only because the US Senate is so
egregiously malapportioned does it make sense for McConnell to trample so
blatantly over public opinion and the president's traditional prerogatives.
If Republicans retain a Senate majority despite a Biden win, which is a very
plausible outcome, they may well do the same on the whole panoply of
executive branch appointments. We're accustomed to seeing the president as
the main driver of his Cabinet, with the advise and consent function limited
- even by an opposition Senate - to smoothing off only the roughest edges.
But it used to be the case that presidents could get Supreme Court
appointments through an opposition-held Senate. Will there be a housing and
urban development or health and human services secretary in 2021 if
Republicans hold a Senate majority? Absent filibuster reform, will any
legislation pass at all even if Republicans are consigned to the minority?
Of course, even faced with gridlock, a president can wield executive
authority. But will six conservative Supreme Court justices allow any of it?
Given the extent of the tilted maps - 2 to 3 points in the Electoral
College, 4 in the House, 6 to 7 in the Senate - Republicans could probably
hold majorities almost all the time if they wanted to. But they choose to
play their hand more aggressively than that, moving forward boldly with
unpopular policy initiatives and then obstructing during periodic defeats.
Someone should do something about it
Neither Joe Biden nor Senate Democrats seem inclined to pursue these
measures yet, but if Democrats win a Senate majority this fall, there is a
partial solution at hand:
End the filibuster so a Senate majority can govern.
Admit DC, Puerto Rico, and ideally the US Virgin Islands as US states.
Adopt tough legislative curbs on partisan gerrymandering.
Expand the lower courts, at a minimum, as a way of improving the operation
of the federal judicial system and putting the Supreme Court on notice to
behave itself.
In a pinch, you add seats to the Supreme Court itself. Either way, Democrats
need to get out of the funk of thinking of these moves as outrageous norm
violations. The actual issue is that the American democratic tradition
carries within it two overarching norms that are contradictory. One is
adherence to the Constitution and to the rule of law. The other is adherence
to the concept of political equality - that all citizens are equal and ought
to have their interests and views considered equally by the political
system.
This latter idea is not part of the original constitutional order, but is
implicit in the Declaration of Independence, in the 14th Amendment, in the
landmark Baker v. Carr case requiring "one person, one vote" in state
legislative districts, and in much of our political culture. McConnell's own
statement on Ginsburg's passing invokes the concept of popular sovereignty,
arguing that "Americans reelected our majority in 2016 and expanded it in
2018 because we pledged to work with President Trump and support his agenda,
particularly his outstanding appointments to the federal judiciary."
But of course Americans did no such thing. Most voters preferred the
opposite outcome. What gives McConnell his power is not the will of the
people but the lines on a map. If Democrats win, they would have not only
the power that McConnell currently wields but also the genuine popular
mandate he pretends to have - and they should use it.
The harder question is what to do if, this November, most people vote
against Trump and against McConnell and they win anyway. Twenty years ago,
before I was a journalist, I thought the answer was to take to the streets -
an idea that at the time found little support among elite political actors.
In the desperate year of 2017, Democrats did turn to mass resistance outside
the electoral system as a political tool, but after the midterms, they
dropped it, to their detriment. It was protests that toppled Mariano Rajoy's
corrupt right-wing government in Spain in 2018, Park Geun-hye's corrupt
right-wing government in South Korea in 2017, and Sigmundur Davíð
Gunnlaugsson's corrupt right-wing government in Iceland in 2016. And it is
mass protests in Belarus that may topple a corrupt and authoritarian
government there.
So far, few in charge of anything in America seem to be thinking along these
lines. But after a summer of uprisings and sporadic rioting, it's worth
remembering that while patience is a virtue in politics, charging ahead with
unworkable ideas is not.
People are upset about the direction of the country, and rightly so. If
institutions block change through electoral means, then anger will unleash
itself in other forms. It would be much better for the country for that to
be smart, well-designed acts of civil disobedience led by responsible and
strategically minded people. But if responsible leaders won't lead, then
irresponsible ones will.
