<![CDATA[The Drapers Guild - Lunacy Outreach]]>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 20:31:16 -0400Weebly<![CDATA[What Planet does Aaron Retica Come From?]]>Mon, 20 Aug 2018 20:01:21 GMThttps://www.drapersguild.com/lunacy-outreach/what-planet-does-aaron-retica-come-from       Aaron Retica opened a review of Matthew Kneale’s “Rome – A History in Seven Sackings”, in the New York Times Book Review, a week or so ago, by calling attention to the “astonishing geographical range” of the Roman Empire.  “There are Roman ruins in Scotland, in Hungary, in Syria – even in Morocco and Libya,” he wrote.
       Even in Morocco and Libya?
 
       My good friend, Victor, has reconciled himself to, or anaesthetized himself to, or adjusted to the inexorable epidemic of societal dementia by treating it as theater of the absurd, as something to chuckle at.
       It’s a good strategy. I can stick to it most of the time. But sometimes I do get riled up. Never more so than a week or so ago, when I dove into Retica’s review.
 
          When we think of Rome and its history, particularly its ancient history, we tend to imagine the city projecting its power out into the world, over an astonishing geographical range. There are Roman ruins in Scotland, in Hungary, in Syria — even in Morocco and Libya.
 
       It was the last straw. Oh well, a last straw. I sent the following letter to the Book Review.
 
       Aaron Retica opens his review of Matthew Kneale’s “Rome – A History in Seven Sackings” by calling attention to the “astonishing geographical range” of the Roman Empire. “There are Roman ruins in Scotland, in Hungary, in Syria – even in Morocco and Libya,” he writes.
       Even in Morocco and Libya? While Roman ruins in Hungary and Scotland point to an extensive empire, how can Retica think it even more astonishing that there are Roman ruins in Morocco, in Libya, or anywhere in the Mediterranean Basin?
       Yes, I’m nit-picking, but this one-sentence nit reveals an ignorance of geography, history and culture which is endemic among people who are thought of – by themselves and others – as educated.
       Even someone who knew nothing of Hannibal, Carthage or the Punic Wars, someone whose only knowledge of the world came from television news, if thinking clearly would be able to reason that if hordes of migrants can sail from Libya to Italy in small, leaky boats, Libya must have been equally accessible to the ancient Romans.
 
       Just to show you how crazy this made me – Even in Morocco and Libya (!!) – I appended a not-for-publication post-script.
 
       Retica’s remark is so damned ignorant that it makes me want to tear my hair out. What was Retica (and whoever edited his piece) thinking – if anything? That since Scotland and Hungary, like Italy, are in Europe, they would be more likely to be Roman destinations than the more exotic Northern Africa?
       Even if you don’t publish this letter or a similar one, please let me know in a quick reply whether you received other letters from readers upset by this idiotic remark. If mine was the only one, then we truly have truly entered a new Dark Ages. 
 
 
 
 
 
]]><![CDATA[One nightmare after another]]>Wed, 01 Nov 2017 18:23:18 GMThttps://www.drapersguild.com/lunacy-outreach/one-nightmare-after-anotherThis full-page ad appeared in today's New York Times:
Picture
       I posted the following comment on the group's Facebook page:

      Yes, we need a nationwide default movement for the removal of Donald Trump. However, your misguided and poorly conceived group must not be it.
       “The nightmare” of Donald Trump is an existential one, a national calamity. As long as he remains in office, we will be in a constitutional crisis.
       “The nightmare” of Mike Pence is a nightmare for the left. That is a much different sort of crisis.
       Donald Trump, because he is unfit to be President, does not have a constitutional right to his office.
       Mike Pence – no matter how hateful his policies are to the majority of Americans – is as fit for office as you or I. He was elected Vice-President and has a constitutional right to that office – and to the Presidency, if Trump is removed. (It’s a drag, but that’s the way it is.)
       Your cry of “fascism” is weak, hysterical, a cliché.  
       Donald Trump is not a fascist. He’d probably like to be a demagogue, if the word were in his vocabulary.
       Mike Pence is not a fascist – he’s not an authoritarian nationalist. Pence is an ultra-conservative politician who, if he had his way, would take the country back to the 1950’s.     
       There are fascist tendencies in the extremes of both parties. The danger to the country from fascism comes from politicians of either party pandering to those extremes.
       Donald Trump must be removed from office. A Pence Presidency is the sacrifice we on the left must endure for our country’s sake. Hopefully, with Democratic gains in the 2018 elections, that sacrifice could be somewhat tempered.
       An effective nationwide anti-Trump movement must be a movement for impeachment of the President. Donald Trump is the only viable target, not “The Trump/Pence Regime.”
       The most sure and streamlined route to solving the Trump problem would be application of Article 25, Section 4. That would require a concerted effort by moderate Republicans, and pressure on Pence and on the cabinet by influential oligarchs and Republican donors.
 
 
 
 

]]><![CDATA[Sssshhhh. . . Tell No One]]>Wed, 11 Oct 2017 20:19:03 GMThttps://www.drapersguild.com/lunacy-outreach/sssshhhh-tell-no-one       Here is a letter I sent to The New York Times on October 7:
 
      We're quite good at closing the barn door after the horse has bolted - for example, heightening airport security after 9/11, repairing New Orleans’ levees after Katrina, and now, likely banning gun bump stocks after the Las Vegas massacre. But let's not wait until after a nuclear war with North Korea before impeaching the president, or exercising Article 25, Section 4 of the Constitution. 
 
       They did not publish it, needless to say.
 
                                                        ***
 
Here is Article 25, Section 4:
 
       Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
       Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
 
                                                    ***
 
       It occurred to me that Article 25, Section 4, would be a relatively painless way – from the point of view of the Republican Party – to remove Donald Trump from office.
       The more I thought about it, the more it became clear that exercising Article 25, Section 4, would not only be relatively painless for the Republicans, it could rejuvenate the party and greatly improve its chances for retaining its Congressional majorities in 2018.
 
       This is not an absurd scenario.
       The first step is a big one – unprecedented, controversial, historic. After that, though, it would be politics as usual, with the Republicans calling the shots:
 
1)    Mike Pence sends a letter, co-signed by eight cabinet members, to Orrin Hatch and Paul Ryan, declaring that Donald Trump is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. The Vice-President immediately, automatically, becomes Acting President.
       How might that work? Can you imagine the temper tantrum that would trigger? Would guards have to escort Trump out of the Oval Orifice? Would devoted Trump staffers protest to the point where they were arrested by the secret service?
       Not necessarily.
       Trump has declared bankruptcy three times. He is comfortable with a strategy in which he appears to be a loser if, in reality, he wins by it.
       Trump has expressed his dismay about how much harder it is to be President than he thought it would be. He has no concept of the honor, one of the greatest in the world, of being the President of the United States. He does not understand the historical significance of the office. He feels none of the awe that any politician and most Americans would feel in his place. The White House has no special aura for him – “a dump,” he called it – and he spends as much time away from it as he can, in some enclave of Trumpland.
       Under Article 25, Section 4, the President’s self-esteem might be somewhat soothed by the fact that Mike Pence would not replace him as President. Pence would remain Vice-President. Pence's official role would be Acting President.
       Also...
       A key point of Section 4 is that, unlike a successful impeachment, it’s not forever. According to Article 25, Section 4, Trump could resume the Presidency in three weeks (a few days more, if Congress is not in session). All he would need is the support of 1/3 of Congress. At that point – at Pence’s assumption of the Acting Presidency – that 1/3 would look easy-peasy, especially to a congenital optimist. The prospect of a battle royal, with daily headlines, and a victorious return might appeal to Trump.
       Following Trump’s removal, opportunities in his world – as opposed to the alien world of Washington – might arise which he would regard as preferable – more profitable, less stressful, in the sort of endeavors he has mastered. He might host a new late night talk show on Fox. He might restart the Dubai Trump Tower project. He might not be interested in resuming an office which would prohibit his taking advantage of such opportunities.
 
2)      If, immediately after Pence’s invocation of Article 25, Section 4, Trump’s lawyers were to file a letter declaring that "no inability exists," Pence still would be guaranteed at least 25 days as Acting President (four days for him to reply, then 21 days before a deciding vote).
       (Assuming that a few ducks had been lined up in a row before Pence and the Cabinet made their move, the pro-Trump forces in Congress would face enough procedural motions and legal wrangles – the ambiguities in Article 25, Section 4, are glaringly obvious – to stretch out deliberations for the maximum 21 days, and perhaps even longer.)
       Twenty-one days is a long time. Within those three weeks, the ultra-Conservative Pence could demonstrate that he is the President that  Trump voters wanted.
       Acting President Pence could double-down on Trump’s rescission of DACA – no deals with the Democrats.
       Now that the Supreme Court seems amenable to the Trump Travel Ban, Acting President Pence could expand its scope, add more countries, add more visa restrictions.
       Acting President Pence could begin building that stupid wall.
       Acting President Pence could renew attacks on Planned Parenthood.
       Acting President Pence could withdraw our troops from Syria.
       Acting President Pence could invite Putin to the White House for high level talks.
       As for the North Korean problem, Acting President Pence could urge recognition of North Korea as a nuclear power (Steve Bannon’s position) and pressure other nuclear powers for a nuclear summit meeting to which North Korea would be invited. That (not the summit meeting, just our advocacy of it) would bring to an end the threat of nuclear war with North Korea.   
 
3)      The Breitbart wing of the party would find itself wrong-footed by a consistently ultra-conservative, yet competently sane and rational Administration. The Republicans would face fewer ultra-right challenges in the 2018 primaries than they would have with the embattled and ineffective Trump in office. In the 2018 Congressional elections, Trump-traumatized moderates, having breathed a sigh of relief, would extend a vote (a literal vote) of gratitude to the party that got rid of him.
 
4)      If, at some time, Trump’s physicians were to come up with the right cocktail for whatever it is that ails him, and the Republican Party were to feel that political expediency called for reinstating Trump, it could be done without any fuss. If Trump were to reassume the Presidency, it would be as a figurehead - an entertaining one - with Pence and his coterie continuing to call the shots.   
 
         If there is anything unreasonable about the above analysis of Article 25, Section 4, and how the Republican Party could use it to their advantage, let me know. I don’t see it.
 
Meanwhile...
 
Sssshhhh. Tell no one.
      
 
 
 
 
 

]]><![CDATA[Is This Paranoid or What?]]>Wed, 21 Jun 2017 20:16:08 GMThttps://www.drapersguild.com/lunacy-outreach/is-this-paranoid-or-what       Might not the as-yet-unexplained coma of that poor kid, Otto Warmbier, be a message from the North Koreans: we have a great new nerve gas and we are ready to use it?
       Isn’t that a reasonable possibility?    
       Evidently not. In a semi-perfunctory google, I couldn’t find anyone else who thought – at least out loud and on the internet – that maybe the return of poor Warmbier was a North Korean chemical weapons threat.
       But consider:
       1) Threats are what North Korea does. Kim’s North Korea will survive for only as long as it can continue to make credible threats of mass destruction.
       2) Warmbier’s doctors could find no trace of the botulism which North Korea blamed for his coma and they remain puzzled about the coma’s cause.
       3) Why botulism? Either the North Koreans had no idea what caused Warmbier’s coma or they chose to lie about it. Either way, why not an embolism, or a stroke, or meningitis? Why botulism?
       You get botulism from eating rotten food. Warmbier was in the custody of the North Koreans, ergo they are responsible for the rotten food that killed him. But the last thing North Korea wants is to be considered a third world country, where food is so rotten that prisoners die of botulism. So, why botulism?
       One thing I did find on google is that North Korea’s chemical weapons arsenal includes botulism toxin. (No secret – it was reported by Jane’s.)
       Why botulism? It makes sense if it were a threat: Botulism? Are you kidding? What we did to this poor kid, we could do to millions of you.  
       4) Why did the North Koreans send Warmbier home? As a threatening gesture must be added to other plausible reasons.
       If it was a threat, the timing fits with the increased tensions ratcheted up by North Korea’s recent volley of missile tests and the volatile instability of the US government.
 
       I’d love to get comments about this. Just, “You’re being paranoid!” would be appreciated.

]]><![CDATA[Scoop!]]>Fri, 27 Jan 2017 16:53:48 GMThttps://www.drapersguild.com/lunacy-outreach/scoop          There is no end, it seems, to Lebanon’s trash crisis, a potent symbol of the dysfunctional, sect-based politics that define this tiny country — just half the size of Vermont, the journalist and historian David Hirst has noted.
          “On Lebanon’s Once-Sparkling Shores, a Garbage Dump Grows”, The New York Times, Jan. 27, 2017
 
       The Drapers Guild has announced that its in-house journalist and historian, Ondiep Schepemmer, after painstaking research, has calculated that the population of Lebanon is twice the population of Nevada, that the length of Lebanon’s coastline is the same as that of New Jersey’s, and that height of Lebanon’s tallest building exceeds the combined heights of the tallest buildings in Alaska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming.
       “I am only following in the footsteps of David Hirst,” said the modest Schepemmer. “Whatever I have achieved today, I owe to the inspiration of Hirst’s original brilliant and groundbreaking findings.”

]]><![CDATA[Oppression Here, Oppression There, Oppression Everywhere]]>Mon, 18 Jul 2016 15:45:01 GMThttps://www.drapersguild.com/lunacy-outreach/july-18th-2016Letter to The New York Times, sent a few days ago.         
         Minorities feel oppressed by the white majority. The white majority, soon also to be a minority, feels oppressed by minorities. This anger of groups of Americans – white supremacists, black protestors, LGBT activists – directed against other groups of Americans is misguided, perhaps even purposefully misdirected. Yes, the truth is that all Americans (well, 99% of us) are oppressed. The real source of this oppression should be perfectly clear from the fact that the Republican National Convention is being held in a place called the Quicken Loans Arena and the Democratic National Convention in a venue called the Wells Fargo Center.
 
 

]]><![CDATA[Terror Here, Terror There, Terror Everywhere]]>Tue, 08 Dec 2015 19:14:37 GMThttps://www.drapersguild.com/lunacy-outreach/terror-here-terror-there-terror-everywhere       The vicious attack by Malik and Farook terrorized – terrified – San Bernardino, the Los Angeles metropolitan area and other nearby communities in southern California. The rest of the country is being terrorized – terrified – by the media coverage of their attack.
       Newscasters know that a panicked public will stay glued to their screens. Political candidates who campaign to the emotional responses of voters know they can use the San Bernardino massacre to increase the sense of despair and fear which their strategy relies on. Pundits look for perspectives on San Bernardino that can be said to effect as much of their audience as possible. Even The New York Times, by making the San Bernardino massacre its lead front page story five days in a row, with three banner headlines, contributes to the hysteria.
       The news media has a responsibility to report thoroughly and extensively on the facts and ramifications of an act of terrorism as horrific as San Bernardino. However, by making San Bernardino into another Paris – which it was not, neither in its planning, nor its execution, nor its outcome – newscasters, pundits, political candidates and political leaders have aggrandized Malik and Farook. I doubt they imagined that their office party bloodbath would cause the entire nation, from the White House down, to tremble.

(Sent to the NYT, who didn't publish it.)

]]><![CDATA[(Post to be deleted once someone at Weebly tells me how)]]>Tue, 08 Dec 2015 15:18:44 GMThttps://www.drapersguild.com/lunacy-outreach/terror-here-terror-there-terror-everywhere-to-ny-times-unpublished<![CDATA[To N Y Times: Brothers' Keepers]]>Mon, 07 Sep 2015 00:00:34 GMThttps://www.drapersguild.com/lunacy-outreach/to-n-y-times-brothers-keepers         Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey have done more than their share when it comes to caring for the refugees of the Syrian conflict. Where are the other Islamic nations when it comes to welcoming those migrants whose culture is closer to theirs than to Europe’s and whose faith often arouses the denomination, even in official communiqués, of “our brothers?” Why have Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Morocco, Kuwait and the Emirates remained on the sidelines? (Pakistan can be given a pass, because it already is overwhelmed with refugees from Afghanistan.)
       If those countries could be shamed, or induced (the ones which receive substantial Western aid), to open their doors to the migrants, not only would it be fitting, considering that the conflicts raging in that part of the world are fueled by political rivalries among Islamic states, and would alleviate the crisis in Europe, but it also would help separate the migrants who are genuine refugees, who face only death and destruction at home and would welcome any haven, from those who are economically motivated, dazzled by a perception of northern European wealth and opportunity, who have joined the refugee juggernaut but would not acquiesce to being settled elsewhere than in the prosperous West.

]]><![CDATA[To The NY Times Re: Awkward Policies]]>Sun, 29 Mar 2015 13:50:23 GMThttps://www.drapersguild.com/lunacy-outreach/to-the-ny-times-re-awkward-policies        “It is an awkward moment,” you write about the United States finding itself aligned with Sudan’s President Bashir in the Yemen turmoil. It is hardly our only awkward alliance in that part of the world.
       In Iraq and Syria, in our war against ISIS, we find ourselves not only allied with Iraq, but reluctant allies of Iran and Syria’s President Assad. In Yemen, aligning ourselves with our ally, Saudi Arabia, against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, we find our cause there being aided by terrorist attacks by ISIS and Al-Qaeda. In Egypt, our awkward support of Hosni Mubarak turned into awkward support of the Muslim Brotherhood and then into awkward support of Sisi’s military dictatorship. In Libya we awkwardly don’t know who to support. And – talk about awkward – we are perceived as taking sides in a sectarian conflict within Islam.
       What are we doing over there? Now that we are pretty much self-supportive when it comes to petroleum, what overwhelming national interest compels us into one awkward alliance, one awkward enmity, after another? We certainly are not making friends, no matter who comes out on top in the end.
       The sensible course for the United States is to stand back and let these governments and their opponents who, if allies, are allies of convenience only, fight it out among themselves. When it is all over, when the dust clears, then we will be able to make policy that is not awkward.
       If humanitarian concerns compel us to intervene in the Middle East, then we should be spending our treasure and manpower on aiding civilians caught up in the turmoil, providing escape corridors for them and keeping them as well and comfortable as we can while they are refugees.
~
A P. S., which I neglected to include in the letter: It is a mistake to think that by defeating ISIS in the Middle East we will prevent ISIS attack on US soil. As long as ISIS is busy defending itself in the Middle East, terrorist attacks elsewhere will be put on the back burner.  As soon as ISIS is defeated -- which it will be, sooner or later -- it will become a typical covert terrorist group, like Al-Qaeda, dangerous everywhere in the world, instead of just the Middle East.


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