I바카라m too old and too stubborn to cede my country to the forces of hatred and a nihilistic desire to blow the whole thing up just to see where the pieces come down.
The night after the election, this long-time pacifist dreamed she shot a big white man carrying an arsenal of guns. He was wandering around a room full of people, waving a pistol and threatening to fire. Someone pushed a gun into my hand and said, 바카라Shoot now, while his back is turned!바카라 I shot. Blood seeped from a hole in his back. He fell. I woke up stunned.
And the election results had not changed.
Night Fears
More bad nights have followed, filled with dreams in which people who know me well accuse me of terrible things I haven바카라t done or of failing to protect people in my charge.
And there have been nights when my partner and I hold each other in the dark and whisper our worst fears. Some of these are personal and selfish: Under the new regime, will I still be able to get the meds that keep me going? Will I have to work for money until I die to keep my health care benefits? Because I turn 65 next year, will I miss the and fall under Paul Ryan바카라s plan to turn that program into a voucher system?
Some fears are national: How can the two of us, and the organizations we바카라re connected with, continue to shield the vulnerable in an era when a serves as the president바카라s chief strategist?
Some are global: Can we hold back the rising seas that are already island nations on a planet where Donald Trump promises to the fight against climate change and walk away from the historic
And then, it바카라s back to the personal again: Just how vulnerable are we, two middle class white lesbians in our sixties, during a Trump presidency? In the 1980s and 1990s, we used to wonder why the two things our 바카라gay leaders바카라 thought we wanted most in the world were to join the Army and get married. Now, the question isn바카라t what we바카라ll be able to do, but what we won바카라t be able to do.
Admittedly, the two of us will never again need the right to an abortion that a Trump-influenced Supreme Court will probably , essentially abrogating the Roe v. Wade decision. But I did need it in 1975, and I thank God I had it. On the other hand, such a court could easily decide to revisit its 2003 decision in , which invalidated sodomy laws. It바카라s easy enough to forget now that, as recently as 1986, in , the court opined that no one has 바카라a fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy.바카라
But the terror that바카라s shaken us the most is that, in the coming years, we might witness the final collapse of the rule of law in this country. I바카라ve spent the last decade and a half writing about and other committed in the global 바카라war on terror.바카라 First, the Bush administration brought us two illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, along with 바카라enhanced interrogation techniques바카라 and a permanent extralegal prison at Guantánamo Bay. The Obama administration followed with its policy of extrajudicial , and undeclared but very real wars in Libya, Syria, and Yemen. Between them, they and and finally broke and laws of all sorts.
But the past two administrations at least gave lip service to the rule of law. In Donald Trump, we have a president-elect who has said he will simply ignore the law if it gets in his way. In a primary debate last March, he insisted that the military would follow any order he gave -- whether to torture detainees or to 바카라 of suspected terrorists. When debate moderator Bret Baier pointed out that soldiers are prohibited from obeying an illegal order, Trump answered, 바카라They won바카라t refuse. They바카라re not gonna refuse me. Believe me. I바카라m a leader. I바카라ve always been a leader. I바카라ve never had any problem leading people. If I say do it, they바카라re going to do it.바카라 Apparently he got some advice about saying such things in public; the following day found him walking back the comments, that 바카라the United States is bound by laws and treaties and I will not order our military or other officials to violate those laws.바카라 But it바카라s pretty clear what he really thinks about the binding power of law.
There바카라s so much to worry about with a Trump presidency. Why does contempt for the rule of law stand out for me? Part of the answer is that by making laws we human beings both recognize and secure our need to live together. In the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas a law as 바카라an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by [whoever] has care of the community, and promulgated.바카라 It바카라s still a pretty decent definition: a reasonable rule made for the good of everyone in the community, rather than for , by those with responsibility for ensuring that good, and made public so that everyone knows what the law is and how it operates. No . No . A premature medieval democrat, Aquinas allowed for the possibility that the one who 바카라has care of the community바카라 might, in fact, be a body of elected representatives, or even the community as a whole.
The law is not sexy. It바카라s not . But it can, for instance, be the protective wall between a group of people designated as and those who hate them (though that is, of course, not Trump바카라s idea of a useful wall). That바카라s only true, however, if the law is enforced. International law could also be the barrier, the wall, that protects the world from a country that for the past 15 years has behaved like an angry two-year-old giant, around the world, missiles and smashing things with its outsized feet. Or it might have been, had Barack Obama not begun his presidency by that he (and therefore the rest of us) would 바카라look forward as opposed to looking backwards바카라 when it came to the crimes of the Bush administration.
That failure to respect the law made it clear that, in twenty-first-century America, some people are exempt from it. Obama continued,
바카라And part of my job is to make sure that, for example, at the CIA, you바카라ve got extraordinarily talented people who are working very hard to keep Americans safe. I don바카라t want them to suddenly feel like they바카라ve got to spend their all their time looking over their shoulders.바카라
I think people who have extraordinary power should spend a good part of their time looking over their shoulders. And more to the point, we should be able to look over theirs.
It appears that the International Criminal Court has finally been looking over the CIA바카라s shoulders. In its annual report, issued earlier this month, the chief prosecutor indicated that she will likely into 바카라war crimes of torture and related ill treatment, by U.S. military forces deployed to Afghanistan and in secret detention facilities operated by the Central Intelligence Agency.바카라 The report observes:
바카라These alleged crimes were not the abuses of a few isolated individuals. Rather, they appear to have been committed as part of approved interrogation techniques in an attempt to extract 바카라actionable intelligence바카라 from detainees.바카라
This is the first move the ICC has made to investigate U.S. war crimes and so to hold this country to the standards of international law. We바카라ll see how far the effort goes. The court바카라s jurisdiction here is murky indeed, because the United States is not party to the treaty that created it.
Day Dreams
I teach ethics to college students. The Wednesday morning after the election I threw out the lesson plan for the day (a lecture on institutionalized state torture). Instead, we considered the election. We watched a few videos: the live feed of Hillary Clinton바카라s speech, Trump바카라s , and CNN commentator Van Jones바카라s unfiltered to the election (바카라this is a whitelash바카라). Then I invited my students to discuss how they felt about Trump바카라s stunning victory.
A young white woman started the conversation by saying how angry she was at the 바카라uneducated white men바카라 who voted for Trump. I asked my students what percentage of people in the U.S. they thought had four-year college degrees. (The is roughly a third.) 바카라That means,바카라 I said, 바카라that two-thirds of the people in this country don바카라t have the chance to go to college. If they are uneducated, it is not entirely by choice.바카라 I went on to talk about the real pain of watching your income shrink, and losing the work that defined your place and your value in a society that measures everything in dollars and cents. I suggested that even as we abhor the political choice to support a candidate who openly declares his racism, misogyny, and contempt for Muslims, disabled people, and the rule of law, we can still respect that pain -- and the humanity of those who feel it.
An Asian American woman began to cry a little as she described her terror not only for herself, but for African American and Latino friends who are more vulnerable than she is.
I can understand her fear. Between the day after the election and Monday, November 14th, the Southern Poverty Law Center had already logged of hate incidents, many of them involving 바카라direct references to the Trump campaign and its slogans.바카라
I바카라ve been remembering the times I바카라ve been yelled at, contemptuously addressed as 바카라sir,바카라 or chased down the street by people who바카라d discerned that I바카라m a lesbian. Donald Trump has spent the last year telling people that their hatred is a good thing, and to feel free to express it with physical violence. It바카라s no wonder some of us are a little scared.
In another class a few days later, an Indian American student told us two stories. The first was about an African American friend of hers at the University of California, Berkeley. She was walking away from a post-election anti-Trump demonstration on campus, when she found herself surrounded by a group of young white men. They began to taunt her. And then they did the thing that Trump boasted his fame allows him to do. They grabbed her pussy. She ran, and fortunately they바카라d had their 바카라fun바카라 and didn바카라t follow her.
The second story was about my student herself. 바카라I was on the BART [our local subway] going to visit my grandmother this weekend,바카라 she began.
바카라I noticed a group of white men around a very young woman, about 18, wearing a hijab. They were making fun of her and calling her names. So I went and sat down next to her and told her to ignore them. When we got to her stop, she was afraid to leave, afraid they바카라d follow her. I had another five stops to go, but I couldn바카라t let her leave alone, so I got out, too. And so did the boys. They followed us out of the station and stood near us yelling as the young woman waited for her ride to come. They started to get closer, and her ride still hadn바카라t made it, so I called a Lyft, and rode with her to her home.바카라
My student바카라s courage humbled me.
No New Normal
The full-time faculty at my university has been working for months without a contract. We바카라ve had a change of administration, and the new regime is fighting hard against a demand for a very modest salary increase. To put the struggle into words, my colleagues have made buttons sporting a red circle and the words 바카라new normal바카라 with a red slash through it. I바카라ve been wearing one to show solidarity with my full-time colleagues. Since Donald Trump바카라s election, I바카라ve taken to wearing it off campus as well. It seems like a particularly appropriate slogan these days for those of us who don바카라t want the new normal to mean a return to a very old normal. Having it on makes me feel a bit braver and a bit more hopeful.
We need hope now, so we can face a world in which hopelessness, despair, and the tears of my students could also become the new norm. Hope doesn바카라t mean pretending that the danger isn바카라t very clear and very present. If your tastes run to good left rhetoric, there바카라s the Italian Marxist suggestion in his that we should combine pessimism of the intellect with an optimism of the will. In an article on 바카라The Indifferent,바카라 he wrote, 바카라To really live means to be a citizen and to take part.바카라
That바카라s a sentiment not so different from what my students read in Aristotle바카라s Nicomachean Ethics. Human beings, says Aristotle, are political animals; we live best when we live as citizens. He also believed that our best qualities are habits we get by practicing them. 바카라We become just,바카라 he says, 바카라by doing just acts.바카라 So you might think of hope as a habit we build in ourselves by doing hopeful things. Think of each of us as assembling it like a rock wall from that don바카라t necessarily look like they바카라ll ever fit together. Hope is the wall we can build, stone by stone, to fence in a future Trumpian autocracy.
A few rocks in my personal wall of hope:
It바카라s 1984. I바카라m in Nicaragua traveling with 15 other people jammed into the back of a tiny pickup truck, bouncing through dangerous territory. It바카라s the height of the war the Reagan administration has funded against the left-wing Sandinista government, which was installed after the ouster of a U.S.-backed dictator, Anastasio Somoza. The road we바카라re traveling down goes through territory controlled by the CIA-backed Contra rebels. We바카라re heading toward a town called San Juan del Bocay. We round a bend and the land flattens out, revealing a barn standing in a field. Someone who has clearly learned to read and write since the 1979 Sandinista revolution has painted a slogan on the side of the building in careful block letters: 바카라Nosotro vencimo Somo libre Nunca volveremo a cer esclavo.바카라
The spelling is terrible; there바카라s no punctuation; and since, like all Nicaraguans, the writer doesn바카라t pronounce the letter 바카라s바카라 at the end of a word, he or she doesn바카라t even realize that it바카라s there, as in 바카라nosotros바카라 -- 바카라we.바카라 But it doesn바카라t matter. The meaning couldn바카라t be clearer. 바카라We won. We are free. We will never go back to being slaves.바카라
When people decide that they are human beings and not beasts of burden, that is a genie no one can shove back into the bottle. Over the last 50 years, groups of people in this country have one by one fought for and claimed their full humanity: African Americans, women, LGB and now T people, those with disabilities, immigrants of whatever documentation status. Trumplandia may not yet recognize our humanity, but we do. You can바카라t shove that back in the bottle either.
It바카라s the Thursday after the 2016 election. I바카라m riding my bike towards campus when I see a phalanx of San Francisco police lining Valencia Street. Then I realize that there바카라s a mid-day, mid-week march coming down the sidewalk. As I get closer, I see that they바카라re all middle school students, shouting and carrying signs like 바카라Dump Trump바카라 and 바카라Love Trumps Hate!바카라 I stop and call to them, 바카라You바카라re going to finish what people like me started.바카라 They cheer for themselves and their own astonishing courage. You can바카라t shove youth back in the bottle. As the folksinger Holly Near decades ago, 바카라You can바카라t murder youth, my friend, youth grows the whole world round.바카라
It바카라s 7:45 a.m. on the Friday after the election. I바카라m entering the building where I teach my 8:00 class. On the door, someone has taped up a simple black and white notice:
바카라To all those hurt by
recent election
results:
Lets mourn and then
Lets organize.바카라
Details follow about where people can meet 바카라to openly discuss methods and ideas to sidestep this horrific election result.바카라 That meeting, says the notice, is to last from 바카라1:00 p.m. -- till whenever we come up with something.바카라 It ends with this observation: 바카라We can be the change we wish to see, we just have to embody it.바카라 There may be a comma splice in that last sentence and an apostrophe missing from 바카라lets,바카라 but again the meaning is clear. These young people are the inheritors of everything my comrades and I have worked for so much of our lives.
The day after the election, I made a rare post on Facebook:
바카라Bad enough we gave the world 8 years of G.W. Bush. Now this. We hadn't figured on the depth of hatred and despair in this country. Now to pick ourselves up and get back to work. No emigration for this woman.바카라
I바카라m an old dyke, a little ragged around the edges, and prone to the occasional night terror. But I바카라m too old and too stubborn to cede my country to the forces of hatred and a nihilistic desire to blow the whole thing up just to see where the pieces come down. I바카라ve fought, and organized, and loved too long to give up now. And Trump and the people who run him can't shove me -- or any of us -- back in that bottle.
Rebecca Gordon, a , teaches in the philosophy department at the University of San Francisco. She is the author of . Her previous books include Mainstreaming Torture: Ethical Approaches in the Post-9/11 United States and Letters from Nicaragua.
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