Category Archives: History

Winning The Electoral College In 2020, Part 3

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Time to resume our series on the Electoral College. Yes, we are still in a time of grieving and protest, and pandemic. But it might be useful to remind ourselves how important the 2020 presidential election will be. America is scheduled to vote in November.

You’ll remember that the Electoral College comes straight from the U.S. Constitution. In Part 1, I exaggerated, but only slightly, when I said of the Electoral College:

“You can’t get rid of it, and you can’t change it.”

Nothing is totally impossible.

Constitutional amendment

Technically, you could get rid of the Electoral College, or change it, with a Constitutional amendment. Simple? No, amending the Constitution is hard. It requires ratification by three-fourths of the states.

You know how divided our national politics is right now? We’re not going to get 75 percent agreement on anything as big as a Constitutional amendment anytime soon.

State laws

Still, you might possibly modify operation of the Electoral College via state law.  Article II, Section 1, gives the states broad authority over its appointed electors. In fact, that’s where the winner-take-all electoral vote comes from. It comes from state laws, and it might be changed by state laws.

The Founding Fathers didn’t plan on political parties, and they didn’t envision the winner-take-all allocation of electoral votes.

But political parties sprang up almost immediately. And just as fast, state legislatures realized they could maximize the impact of their electoral vote by passing a law instructing ALL their electors to vote for the presidential candidate who wins the state’s popular vote. Even if that candidate wins by a whisker, he gets all the state’s electoral votes.

Today, the winner-take-all rule is questioned by many. Nonetheless, the advantages of winner-take-all were so obvious in the early days that each legislature passed a law, one by one. Since the 1830s, it has been nearly universal. If nearly every state uses winner-take-all and it’s lasted a long time, maybe it has advantages or benefits?

Maine (4 electoral votes) and Nebraska (5 electoral votes) have decided to use a slightly modified version. Both Maine and Nebraska award two votes to the statewide popular winner. And they award one vote to the winner in each of their congressional districts. (Maine has two districts and Nebraska has three.) Maine passed a law to lead the way in 1972, and Nebraska passed its law in 1996.

States are not keen on change

You don’t see the other 48 states rushing to join them. The rest of the states and the District of Columbia watched the interesting innovation by Maine and Nebraska. And decided to stick with straight winner-take-all. Perhaps there’s beauty in simplicity. Or maybe it’s comfort with the familiar. Or maybe even fear of the unknown? If it’s not broke, don’t fix it?

More recently, there was another bright idea. States would join an interstate compact agreeing to endorse the winner of the national popular vote. Each state would pass its own law, until enough states passed their own laws to put the agreement into effect. The idea attracted some interest. (You can read details of the interstate compact proposal in the comments below Part 1. And discussion about winner-take-all in comments below Part 2. If you have the patience. I don’t really recommend it.)

But remember, our nation is a bit divided at present? We have a hard time agreeing on anything? Enthusiasm for the interstate compact has run out of steam, in my opinion. It is far short of being passed by even half the states. Enough states are not going to change their laws, at least not before November 2020.

(At this moment, 15 states and the District of Columbia have passed the national popular vote interstate compact. Interestingly, all of them are BLUE states. Except Colorado, which is probably purple. Not a single RED state has passed it! Not a single Southern state, Great Plains state, or Rocky Mountain state, except Colorado. The way support for the interstate compact proposal breaks down starkly illustrates the national divide.)

Our nation will not always be as divided as it has become in recent years. Maybe? Well, probably. It’s hard to imagine right this moment, but someday we will once again be able to amend the Constitution or agree on unified state action.

Support for and opposition to the Electoral College could change after 2020 and before the 2024 election. The outcome of the 2020 election might change perceptions. And following the 2020 Census, reapportionment will change the number of votes some states have in the Electoral College. You can never predict the future.

Meanwhile, we live in 2020 and you have to play the game by the rules in the book.

The important thing, whether you support the Republican candidate or the Democratic candidate, is to win 270 votes in the Electoral College, using the rule book we have. The election is only five months away.

We will return to the task at hand, consideration of Electoral College arithmetic, state by state, in Part 4. I hope it will be more interesting than Part 3. Be there or be square.

— John Hayden

Winning The Electoral College In 2020, Part 2

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Path to 270

The above United States map helps focus one’s attention on the importance of the Electoral College.

The map gives inside information on the Joe Biden campaign strategy for winning the White House in 2020. You won’t likely see it anyplace else. Please keep it top secret. The map was shared with me and several hundred-thousand other insiders. Maybe a million insiders. Because Joe Biden has our email addresses and wants us to send money.

The Upper Midwest

You can see a row of six states in the upper Midwest, from Pennsylvania in the east to Minnesota and Iowa in the west. They’re medium-size states; together they have 80 electoral votes. Donald Trump won five of the six states in 2016. Joe Biden’s campaign has its work cut out, don’t you think? Consider:

  • Pennsylvania, 20 electoral votes
  • Ohio, 18 electoral votes
  • Michigan, 16 electoral votes
  • Wisconsin, 10 electoral votes
  • Minnesota, 10 electoral votes
  • Iowa, 6 electoral votes

The Electoral College totals 538 votes. The winning candidate needs a bare majority, 270 votes.  Joe Biden doesn’t need all six states and their 80 votes to win. But he’s going to have a hard time reaching 270 unless he wins at least four. The most likely four would be Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, totaling 56 electoral votes.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton won Minnesota. But she lost Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin by fewer than 2 percent of the votes in each state. If she had won those three states, she would have won with 274 electoral votes.

So now you know the most important states in the Biden campaign strategy, and maybe in the Trump strategy as well.

Pack your suitcase or nag

What can you do? If you desperately want Biden to win, the best thing you can do is pack your suitcase, move to one of the four states, and be a tireless volunteer from now until November. Or you can contribute money to the Biden campaign.

Or you can nag your spouse, children, parents, neighbors, and the people at work. Tell them all to vote for Joe Biden. You can do it right where you live.

Make sure they register to vote. Urge them to apply for a mail-in ballot, or at least to vote early. If you don’t like the word “nag,” you may substitute the word “electioneer.”

There’s not one right way to reach 270 votes

Biden has at least a fighting chance to also win Ohio and Iowa. If he wins all six states, it wouldn’t guarantee victory, but he’d be on his way.

Donald Trump also doesn’t need all six states to be reelected. But he won five of them in 2016, and he needed them. He probably needs to win two of the states, at a minimum, Ohio and Iowa. And he’d seriously like to win a few more.

If you desperately want Trump to win, you know where to volunteer. You know whom to nag. Or electioneer.

Now, there’s two more states in the Upper Midwest. You might overlook them because they’re not highlighted on the map. They are Illinois (20 electoral votes) and Indiana (11 electoral votes). They’re colored grey because political observers understand that Illinois will most likely support the Democratic ticket in November, and Indiana will most likely support the Republican ticket.

Do not take Electoral College votes for granted

It does’t mean Illinois and Indiana are not important, as some critics of the Electoral College suppose. Their electoral votes are absolutely crucial for the Biden and Trump campaigns. The assumptions that Illinois will go Democratic and Indiana will go Republican are as close to a sure thing as any assumptions you can make for 2020. But no one can absolutely predict an election! Beware of assumptions. Voters have surprised the experts before, and they will do it again.

Make no mistake: A candidate who takes any state and its voters for granted is a candidate at risk. Hillary Clinton expected to win in Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016, so she focused her efforts on other states. She virtually ignored Michigan and Wisconsin.

Michigan and Wisconsin paid her back by narrowly voting for Donald Trump! The electoral votes of Michigan (16 votes) and Wisconsin (10 votes), along with Pennsylvania (20 votes) tipped the Electoral College to Trump. Clinton squeaked by with a national popular vote majority, but so what? The Electoral College rules.

And you know what? Clinton very nearly lost Minnesota and its 10 votes.

If you seriously want to understand the Electoral College and the 2020 election, you should read the above paragraphs again. They don’t mean that any of the Midwest states hold the key to the 2020 election. The point is: Some states get extra attention because they’re considered battleground states. But every state is important, any state might surprise you, and every state’s electoral votes count.

Do not imagine that I am disclosing Biden campaign secrets  to the Trump organization. Donald Trump also has a map of the U.S., and he knows all the same information about the Electoral College that Joe Biden knows.

And do not imagine that the Midwest states are the end of the 2020 story. They’re only the beginning. ALL the states highlighted on the map are important. The candidates are going to work like hell for all of them. Because if they lose one or two important states, it’s not the end. They can make it up by winning other states.

And some of the states colored grey might surprise you like a jack-in-the-box on election night.

Eventually, we’ll go through the list of all 50 states plus Washington, D.C., and ponder the possibilities for November 2020. It’s all about arithmetic.

#  #  #  #  #  #

I had planned to wrap up some loose ends from Part 1 at this point. Clarify why it’s useless to worry about changing the Electoral College and the winner-take-all electoral vote system right now. But Part 2 is already too long. So we’ll briefly address those loose ends in Part 3. And then move on quickly to review the 2016 Electoral College results as a preview to what’s ahead in 2020. See you in Part 3.

— John Hayden

Winning The Electoral College In 2020, Part 1

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Path to 270

NOTE: Many people believe the president should be elected by the national popular vote, instead of by the Electoral College vote. For an interesting discussion of popular vote vs. Electoral College, see the many comments at the bottom of the post.

To rage against the U.S. Electoral College is worse than a distraction. It is useless, it’s a waste of time.

If you want to know the names of the president and vice president who will be sworn in next January, 2021, if you care who the next president will be, you have to WIN A MAJORITY of the Electoral College in the November 2020 presidential election. It’s as simple as that. And as difficult. Just look at the Electoral College map above.

Raging against the Electoral College is worse than a distraction because you can’t get rid of it, and you can’t change it.

Where does the Electoral College come from?

It comes from the U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 1.

“Each State shall appoint, in such a Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress . . . The Electors shall meet in their respective States and vote by Ballot for two  Persons . . . And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed . . . to the President of the Senate. . . . The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the president, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed . . .

. . . after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President.”

Straightforward, right?

Each state gets a number of electors equal to its two U.S. Senators plus the number of members the state has in the U.S. House of Representatives. The candidate with the most electoral votes is the next president.

But only if that number is a majority of all the electoral votes. That’s important. Note that the Constitution requires a MAJORITY of the Electoral College. Not a minority.

The above system has been used in every presidential election since the first one in 1788, when a majority chose George Washington without a whole lot of dispute.

The Electoral College is arithmetic, specifically addition! No subtraction, multiplication, long division, geometry or calculus.

So why the consternation about the Electoral College?

Good question. It starts with the fact that the electoral votes of smaller states are proportionately greater than the votes of larger states. That’s because large states and small states all have two U.S. senators as the base point for their number of electors. I will leave it to others with a better understanding of mathematics to consider how significant that proportional difference is in the context of 538 total electoral votes.

A winner-take-all system of awarding the electoral votes makes the proportional difference worse. Much, much worse.

The presidential candidate who wins a state’s popular vote wins ALL that state’s electoral votes. The losing candidate gets NONE of the state’s electoral votes. Even though he or she may have won 45 percent of the state’s popular vote. (The only exceptions are Maine and Nebraska.)

As a result of the winner-take-all system, on top of the proportional advantage of the smaller states, the electoral vote for president does not perfectly reflect the popular vote nationwide. But usually — almost always — one candidate wins both the Electoral College majority and a national popular vote majority or plurality and becomes president.

(NOTE: A candidate must win a MAJORITY in the Electoral College. That’s mandated in the Constitution. Failing an Electoral College majority, the election goes to the House of Representatives. In 1800, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied with 73 votes each. And the House of Representatives deadlocked 35 times before finally electing Jefferson to be second president of the U.S.

A benefit of the winner-take-all allocation of electoral votes is that it makes failure of one candidate to win an Electoral College majority nearly impossible. Therefore, the winner-take-all system protects against the prospect of an election being decided in the House of Representatives.)

In the national popular vote, the winner might NOT have a majority. When there are three or more candidates, minor candidates slice off little pieces of the popular vote, potentially leaving the winner with less than a majority. When a winner has the most votes but it’s less than a majority, he wins with only a MINORITY. That’s called a PLURALITY.

Bottom line: It is possible for one candidate to win the Electoral College and another candidate to win the national popular vote! Usually it’s not a problem. It’s only happened a few times in the whole history of the U.S.

But it happened in 2016!

Donald Trump won a clear majority (304 to 227) in the Electoral College. Hillary Clinton won a plurality of the national popular vote (48.2% to 46.1%) (65,853,514 to 62,984,828 approximately).

Even though not a majority, Clinton had more popular votes than Trump. And Trump had more electoral votes. Many people think Clinton should therefore be president. But sorry, the winner was Trump, the one with the Electoral College majority. It says so in the Constitution, and the Constitution is the law of the land.

A majority, of course, is 50% plus 1. If you’re a mathematician or a perfectionist, you might calculate: 50% – 48.2% = 1.8%.

And you might ask, where are those 1.8% of the popular votes which denied Clinton a majority. I’m not a mathematician, but I doubt that even a mathematician can answer that question for sure.

It might be reasonable to suggest: Maybe that 1.8% of the popular vote is reflected in the Electoral College total?

Trump is a minority president, and Clinton would also be a minority president. Is it possible to speculate that the Electoral College might reflect the will of the whole nation as accurately as the popular vote?

My head spins! Are these mathematical questions, or metaphysical questions?

And that, my friends, is why many people wonder about the Electoral College and the national popular vote.

In the next post, Part 2, we’ll discuss how the winner-take-all system came to be.

And more important, why it’s a waste of time worrying about the Electoral College, because we’re not going to change it. At least not before the November election. Which is only five months away.

Rather than raging against the Electoral College, your time would be better spent trying to WIN the Electoral College majority for the candidate of your choice. That is the point of this series of posts.

See you in Part 2.

— John Hayden

Children In Danger

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In the 1950s, when I was a child in elementary school, we were taught to hide under our desks and shield our eyes in the event of an atomic bomb attack. The nuns in my school didn’t seem alarmed. Simply another thing we practiced at school, like fire drills, multiplication tables, and penmanship. It was called “duck and cover.”

Adults talked about the A-bomb.

We lived in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital, a likely target of our enemy, the Russians, who lived far away.

My mother mused that we might evacuate to get away from a bomb. My father worked in downtown Washington, and we were in the suburbs, so if we decided to evacuate during the day, we should plan to meet up at some church about an hour’s drive west, near Frederick, MD. My father was more interested in reading the afternoon paper. A day off from school! That was my thought.

This atomic bomb thing, should it ever happen, would be a big explosion in the distance, and a main danger was that the bright light would hurt our eyes. Duck and cover was the thing to do.

No one, adults or children, had ever seen an atomic bomb explosion. We hadn’t heard of such a thing actually happening, certainly not at any school nearby. Or anyplace else in our state. Or anyplace, really. Adults recalled that airplanes had dropped two atomic bombs, but that was far away, long before we children were born.

The 1950s are more than a half-century in the past. The distant and naive past. Today’s schoolchildren and parents live with the fears of 2018. The more things change, the more they remain the same?

No.

In elementary school, today’s dangers are different. 

Children now drill on how to survive an “active shooter.” A shooter inside their school. It’s not a distant, abstract danger. It has really happened in schools. Already happened! 

It’s happened over and over. It’s happened in schools in your own state. Everyone knows about it. No one denies it. The danger is in your neighborhood, possibly next door. Maybe in your very own house!

In my childhood, we saw guns in cowboy movies. For today’s children, guns are everywhere. Sometimes it seems as if nearly everyone is armed, at least here in Florida.

As the new school year begins, the state is belatedly (reluctantly?) spending some money in reaction to public opinion. It is, after all, an election year. Nothing to control guns, mind you. But they’re putting up fences around some schools. Rushing to hire and train more school security personnel. Dress them in more military-like uniforms. Putting on a show to placate fearful parents. In some cases, making schools look like prisons with correctional officers.

Meanwhile, inside the schools principals and teachers conduct active-shooter drills. Children are taught something new: “Run, Hide, Fight.” Sounds like basic training in the army. But it’s not the army. It’s elementary school and high school. It’s worth repeating: “Run, Hide, Fight.”

Wait.

Children are now expected to fight a man shooting a gun in the classroom, the hallway, the cafeteria?

Oh, well. Only as a last resort. First, you should run or hide. Hope and pray (is prayer OK?) that the police arrive. Hope and pray that police arrive, like, RIGHT NOW.

And yes, you might have to fight a gunman with your bare hands, as a last resort. That’s what the schools are teaching. Is it possible that I’ve misunderstood? If that is incorrect, please, somebody correct me.

No, the danger children face at school is not the same.

Yes, the danger at school, and other places too, is WORSE. The danger is not abstract. It’s real. It’s immediate. It’s everywhere.

Are children traumatized by this fear? Or do they ignore it? What about parents? What about teachers? How do teachers cope with fear? Some suggest teachers should carry guns.

Full Stop. Those thoughts — danger in school, children and parents in fear, teachers, guns. More than enough for one day. A good place to stop writing. The only place to go from here is: Can a society live like this, and survive?

— John

Note: This post was prompted by a news story, “Parents block shooter video: Pinellas elementary school kids won’t have to see it as part of active shooting drills,” in The Tampa Bay Times, Aug. 21, 2018, page 1B.

End Of The Civil War

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“Being on the wrong side of history carries consequences. V lives that truth every day. If you’ve done terrible things, lived a terrible way, profited from pain in the face of history’s power to judge, then guilt and loss accrue. Redemption becomes an abstract idea receding before you. Even if your sin — like dirt farmers in Sherman’s path — had been simply to live in the wrong place, you suffered. Didn’t matter whether you  owned slaves or which way you voted or how good your intentions had been. Or how bad. You might suffer as much as the family of a great plantation, which was maybe not completely just. But if you were the family with the great plantation, you had it coming. Those were times that required choosing a side — and then, sooner or later, history asks, which side were you on?”

— Charles Frazier, writing in “VARINA”

End Of The Civil War

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“A part of her believed this one moment — Carolina woods, a wagonload of children, lights of heaven blazing on a clear spring night — was sufficient. An eternity in itself. A perfect instant if you erased guilt of the past and dread of the future.”

— Charles Frazier writing in “VARINA”

State and Warfare

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I don’t know if this perspective on the changing nature of war is 100 percent correct, or not. It certainly provides food for thought in this second decade of the 21st century.

I’m uncertain about the term “consumerist warfare.” This would seem to imply that the warfare is designed to protect a consumer-driven economy.  I need to think about this some more.

As we view the final season of “Downton Abbey,” it’s as if many in America and the U.K. and Canada are caught up in an extended meditation on the old order slipping away and a new and unknown order going forward. Ready or not! The many posts pondering the end (or at least evolution) of the western nation-state over at Clarissa’s Blog also cause us to think about changing times writ large.

Clarissa's Blog

The manner of waging war transforms with every transformation of the state model (Many people say that it’s the other way round: the state form follows the changes in the ways of waging war. Ultimately, the warfare methods are indissolubly linked to the state model, no matter what “comes first.”)

As we discussed before, the nation-state model arose, to a significant degree, in response to a need to find a less costly way than any that had existed before to wage war on an unprecedented scale. This goal was achieved in full, as we all know from the example of the two world wars. Without the nation-state, this kind of warfare would not be possible.

As the nation-state withers away and a new state form comes to replace it, warfare changes as well. Today we are seeing a gradual consolidation of what I call “consumerist warfare.” (This is just my own…

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Bernie Sanders For President

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Bernie SandersSen. Bernie Sanders announced today that he will run for president of the U.S. in 2016.

Sanders, the Independent U.S. senator from Vermont, will run as a Democrat. He calls himself a democratic socialist. Remember those two words:  democratic socialist.

I could support Bernie Sanders for president. Let me think about it.

For video of the Sanders announcement, see Politico.

I’ve been a participant-observer in Democratic Party politics for a long time. Usually, I think long and hard when two or more Democrats are competing for the same office.

Thinking back to 1968, I was a Democratic college student during the Vietnam War. Like many students, I supported Sen. Eugene McCarthy, the peace candidate, for president, My memory is unreliable, but after Bobbie Kennedy entered the battle for the Democratic nomination, I was torn between McCarthy and Kennedy. It was a tough decision, and I don’t remember which way I came down. I also respected Vice President Hubert Humphrey, the more traditional candidate that year. Bobbie Kennedy, of course, was assassinated after the Democratic primary in California. Humphrey won the nomination in Chicago, while the Chicago Police Department ran riot amidst protesters on the streets. Humphrey lost to Republican Richard Nixon in November.

OK, I’ve thought about it. I believe I’ll support Sen. Bernie Sanders for president of the U.S. in 2016. Things can change. I might change my mind. But I doubt it.

The times were right for Gene McCarthy or Bobbie Kennedy in 1968. The times are right for Bernie Sanders in 2016. In 1968, the issues were war and peace and civil rights.  In 2016, the issues are economic equality and civil rights. Not since 1968 has the line been so clearly drawn between the elites and the people.

I believe Bernie Sanders could win a Democratic primary election in my state, Maryland. A U.S. Senator named Barack Obama upset the establishment candidate, Hillary Clinton, here in 2008. It has happened before; it could happen again.

A quote for Democrats to think about from The Washington Post blog, The Fix:

“Sanders will be the beating heart of the party while Clinton will, always, be its head.”

May you live in interesting times. More later. Anyone else ready and willing to commit to a candidate?

— John Hayden

Rumors Of War And Economic War, Russia And Ukraine

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After the most horrible, bloody century of war in history — 1914 to 2014 — wouldn’t you hope that humankind has learned something about war and peace?

After all these years, we are still attracted to war like mindless, flying insects to a lightbulb on a dark night. In recent decades, we’ve certainly not hesitated to invade, shoot and bomb, using ever more-effective killing and maiming technology. But we’ve also perfected the art of economic war. Politely known as “Economic Sanctions.” At this very moment, the U.S. and Great Britain are threatening to unleash the equivalent of unlimited economic war on Russia.

The economic sanctions are intended to defend the “sovereignty” of Ukraine and Crimea, whatever “sovereignty” means in that part of the world, with it’s emotional history and artificial national boundaries. In the course of such defense, economic sanctions and/or military intervention might just as well destroy Ukraine and Crimea. Sort of like the U.S. destroyed Vietnamese villages to save them, and invaded Iraq to save it, instead ransacking and wrecking Iraq for ten years before abandoning it.

Embed from Getty Images

As the Ukraine reached the boiling  point in recent days, I’ve engaged in discussion with Clarissa, a blogger who knows much more about Russia and Ukraine than I do. She’s posting daily about the developing situation. You can scroll through her many posts and interesting discussion threads at her blog.

I’ve been learning a lot, but also arguing a lot. I used to think I understood this kind of stuff. But as old age sets in, I find I no longer understand anything about the human obsession with war, both military and economic.

Ukraine-map

Below I express my puzzlement in comments I’ve written for Clarissa’s blog.

I guess I’m being blindsided. I read every story about Ukraine and Crimea in this morning’s Washington Post, including an analysis of the emotions and history involved by a former colleague of mine at the Baltimore Sun. I don’t give any credence to cable news speculation.

Forgive me, but I have read no credible evidence that this is anything but a civil war of WORDS involving Russia, Ukraine and Crimea. In fact, if it is a civil war, I’d put the emphasis on the word “civil.” There’s much hand-wringing about a Russian “invasion” of Crimea. Really? Has a single shot been fired? The Russian and Ukraine soldiers in fact seem quite chummy.

The main issues seem to be emotional grievances regarding the official language in Ukraine (reminds me of Quebec’s grievances against English-speaking Canada), “sovereignty,” and which paper money to use. I suspect the “crisis” might blow over if the U.S. would butt out and Ukraine simply decided to recognize both Russian and Ukrainian as official languages.

I do not understand what makes the U.S. and European countries so self-righteous that they must declare economic war on Russia. Yes, I see one blog report that one person has been tortured and killed. There are anecdotes about “volatile protests,” outside agitators and thugs beating up people. As a journalist, know the difficulty of confirming such anecdotes.

In the U.S. most of this would be called street crime, police brutality, or “the right to gather in public and express grievances,” protected under the Bill or Rights. How many confirmed casualties in Ukraine or Crimea? I’m serious. There are 500 murders a year in Chicago. Multiple murders every weekend in Washington and Baltimore. Is it more dangerous right this moment to be in Kiev or in Chicago?

The U.S. government “said the vote was rigged and discounted it as illegal.” (The Washington Post)  I ask: How does the U.S. know that?

I’ve studied politics my whole life, and I have no trouble at all believing that a large majority of people in Crimea would vote allegiance to Russia, and did so on Sunday. Where is the evidence to the contrary? (Yes, 97% seems an obvious exaggeration. So what?) I cannot even verify the election results in my own state, Maryland, where we use a computerized voting system with no way to audit the results. If the computers have not already been hacked, they will be some day soon.

It seems to me that the U.S. and Great Britain foment wars and economic hardship by meddling in internal affairs of other countries.

Sorry, I know I sound naive, and maybe I am. I have a healthy skepticism about what is true or false or propaganda or posturing. — John

____________________________________________________________

Clarissa responds to my comment:

“The main issues seem to be emotional grievances regarding the official language in Ukraine (reminds me of Quebec’s grievances against English-speaking Canada), “sovereignty,” and which paper money to use.”

– These are definitely not the central issues for anybody in Ukraine or Russia. Honestly, this is the first time I hear about paper money in this context at all. I get my news from Russian and Ukrainian media and people I know who live in these countries.

“In the U.S. most of this would be called street crime, police brutality, or “the right to gather in public and express grievances,” protected under the Bill or Rights.”

– If the Russian troops crossed the US border, would this still be called street crime and police brutality?

“I suspect the “crisis” might blow over if the U.S. would butt out and Ukraine simply decided to recognize both Russian and Ukrainian as official languages.”

– In 1994, Ukraine, Russia and the US signed the Budapest accords in which the US promised not to butt out in case Russia violates the territorial wholeness of Ukraine in its 1994 borders. Out of these 3 countries, Ukraine is the only one that fulfilled its part of the agreement by handing over its entire nuclear arsenal to Russia, the country that has invaded right now. If the US didn’t want to have anything to do with what is happening in that area, it shouldn’t have signed the agreements. Wouldn’t you agree that you can’t enter into a contract, get everything you wanted from the other party, and then refuse to fulfill your part of the obligations you freely undertook?

” Is it more dangerous right this moment to be in Kiev or in Chicago?”

– If you look at the map, you will see that Kiev lies pretty far from the Russian border, there are no Russian troops there. Yet. The invasion is taking place in the Lugansk, Kharkov, Mariupol’, Kherson and the Crimea areas. Tragically, these are, indeed, highly criminalized areas. 😦 However, now on top of the street crime and the mafia, there are foreign troops there.

“It seems to me that the U.S. and Great Britain foment wars and economic hardship by meddling in internal affairs of other countries.”

– Russia has been invading Ukraine long before the US even existed. This is not about the US and definitely not about the UK, which has been selling itself to the bandits from Russia for years.

“Sorry, I know I sound naive, and maybe I am.”

– I’m very grateful to you for trying to understand.

end of Clarissa’s reply

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My further response:

“- If the Russian troops crossed the US border, would this still be called street crime and police brutality?”

AND

“- Russia has been invading Ukraine long before the US even existed. This is not about the U.S. and definitely not about the UK.”

Both good points! And you can see the absurdity when you place the above two statements side-by-side in historical and geopolitical context. I’m not an expert on any of this, so I hesitate to make the following analogy, and I welcome more knowledgeable observers to correct me:

Doesn’t it seem that Russia, Ukraine, and Crimea have a long history of  marriage of convenience and breakups? Tumultuous relationships, to be sure, trial separations and divorce, friendly or otherwise. But they are geographically intertwined; they HAVE to live near each other over the long run, and so they do. As you point out, this love-hate affair has been going on since LONG BEFORE the U.S. existed. I agree, it’s NOT about the U.S. or the UK, so what gives the U.S. and UK the right to declare economic world war?

Regarding the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which the U.S., Britain, and Russia reaffirmed their commitment to Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty, and Ukraine agreed to return its nuclear weapons to Russia. Well.

The salient point here is the nuclear weapons. You could keep an international courtroom full of lawyers busy for a century, arguing what the wording of the Budapest Memorandum (contract?) means.

Would the world be a better place if Ukraine had those nuclear weapons at this moment?

A few Ukrainian NATIONALISTS would say “Yes,” but they would be crazy. Everyone else, especially Russia, Crimea, U.S. and UK, understands, in retrospect, the wisdom of the nuclear weapons accord made at Budapest. After the past century of European and Russian history, can’t we all agree that emotional NATIONALISM is not sufficient reason to start a shooting war?

And thank God the U.S. and UK commitment to the territorial “sovereignty” of Ukraine is definitely not a “mutual defense treaty” requiring the U.S. and UK to defend militarily the sanctity of the region’s artificial boundary lines.

What exactly does the word “sovereignty” imply in this case? Can anyone untangle the history and mythology behind these lines on a map? Let Russian, Ukraine, and Crimea work this out in divorce court.  — John

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Let me repeat that I respect Clarissa and her knowledge of Russia and Ukraine. I appreciate her willingness to engage in informative discussions with me and others on her blog. I recommend her blog for anyone following developments in the Ukraine.

Conclusion:

Is there any conclusion? Is history ever over? When will we ever learn?

— John Hayden

Christmas Cards, A Vanishing Tradition

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American card, circa 1940

American Christmas card, circa 1940 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I regret to report that 2013 will be remembered as the year the Christmas card tradition died.

Based on anecdotal evidence, 2013 is the end of an era. People I know report neither sending nor receiving more than a card or two this year. I wouldn’t mind being wrong about this, but . . .

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